Crossroads
by Lynse
Summary: Mabel and Dipper have dealt with a demon before, so when they wind up lost in the woods and are given two choices by a creepy kid with a lantern, they make sure to pick the third option—but every choice has consequences, even when you don't play by the rules. (Cover by Brywnhi)
1. Chapter 1

A/N: For Brywnhi (BlackInkGhost on DeviantArt and paperhoodie on tumblr), as this was supposed to be a birthday present and turned into a collaboration; she beta'd this story and drew a beautiful cover for it, which you can see in its full glory on her DeviantArt page. Additional thanks to Cartwheellou for helping me through writing a punch. In terms of timelines, this is set post-series for both _Gravity Falls_ and _Over the Garden Wall_. Standard disclaimers apply.

* * *

Mabel shrieked as she fell. It was just light enough for her to see Dipper skid to a halt in front of her, but she was already rolling over and kicking out, trying to free herself. Thorns cut into her skin, gripping her ankle and tightening as she tried to work the branch—vine— _whatever_ —loose. The bramble kept tearing into her flesh, so she finally gave up fighting directly and settled for scooting backwards across the uneven ground. Her palms brushed something prickly and rough, and she flinched back. She didn't need her hands caught in a similar trap. Because this _was_ a trap. The flora seemed to have a mind of its own in this place.

Mabel felt Dipper's arms wrap around her, even as tiny tendrils tried to curl around her fingertips. He managed to pull her free, finally snapping the bramble around her ankle in the process, and helped her to her feet. Mabel brushed some of the debris from her sweater, fingering its newest hole before deciding to ignore it.

She had about as easy a time with that as she did ignoring the blood that was seeping into her sock, the throbbing pain in her ankle, or the dull ache in her hands and knees where she'd hit the ground. But that would go away; she'd had to deal with worse than this before. The most important thing was finding some way out of these woods.

"Think you can walk?" asked Dipper.

Mabel put some weight on her foot and winced as pain shot up her leg, but she nodded. They didn't have a choice. If she hadn't lost her grappling hook after their tumble over that wall….

"We'll find our way out of here," Dipper said as if he were reading her thoughts. It wouldn't be the first time he'd managed that, and it wouldn't be the last. "This isn't the worst place he could have trapped us."

Mabel didn't need to ask who her brother was referring to. She knew they were thinking the same thing. She picked a branch out of her hair before it decided to come alive and try to strangle her. "He shouldn't have been able to do this. We erased him." But they'd erased Grunkle Stan's memories, too, and had been able to bring those back. What if they'd accidentally brought Bill back, too? What if that's why he'd been able to get Waddles to run away? What if he'd led Waddles _here_ , wherever here was, to get the two of them hopelessly lost on a recovery mission? They hadn't even _seen_ Waddles since coming into the woods.

Bill Cipher shouldn't be able to do any of this, not after how they'd left him.

"Maybe we just weakened him. Or maybe he'd made another deal, as a backup or something." She could recognize Dipper's grim tone; it was his 'focused' voice. "We can't worry about that now. We have to find our way out of here."

As if they knew how. These woods weren't like the ones in Oregon, and Mabel was pretty sure they weren't in California anymore. This place just felt _wrong_. It was like being trapped in Mabeland again once Dipper had exposed it for what it was, except that this place was more like a creepy nightmare than a place where everything appeared perfect at first glance.

She didn't think Waddles was here anymore. She wasn't even sure he ever had been; they hadn't found any tracks. She and Dipper had stopped calling for him when they'd gotten the feeling that they weren't alone, even though they hadn't seen anything besides trees.

"Let's see if we can find the path again," she decided. "Waddles is smart; he'll have found his way home by now." She wasn't convinced they'd find the elusive trail, wasn't sure they'd ever been on one, but they didn't need one. They could carve their own path out of this place if they had to. They were the Mystery Twins. It was going to take more than a couple of acres of spooky woodland to stop them. "And we'll be right behind him."

"So you can fix your sweater?"

Mabel grinned, not surprised Dipper had noticed her dismay. "So I can fix my sweater," she agreed happily. Bill Cipher's associations hadn't spoiled her love for her shooting star sweater, so she certainly wasn't going to let something like this be the end of it. "And then put the finishing touches on my Summerween costume so it'll be ready by the time we get there." It felt good to have something like that to look forward to, and tomorrow's trip back to Gravity Falls was bound to bring another adventure.

Dipper was looking forward to it, too, if not for the same reasons as Mabel. He'd rather have a long discussion with Fiddleford than prank Pacifica, but it would be good to see everyone either way. Dipper hummed his agreement and started forward, keeping his arm around her for support. She gratefully leaned on him. These woods…. Yeah. There was definitely something wrong with them. It was enough to remind her that they weren't in Gravity Falls and weren't yet surrounded with all their friends and allies. This place _looked_ like a proper forest, and it _smelled_ like one, and it had _felt_ like one when she'd been introduced to the forest floor, but it didn't _sound_ like it should.

It was quieter here than she was used to. No birdsong. No crickets. No frogs. Just the odd howling of the wind, a faint swoosh of leaves, a creaking branch here and there, and a suspicious rustle in the underbrush that she'd call gnomes if she didn't know better. It was gloomy, too, as if it were dusk fading to darkness when it should be closer to noon. Of course, most of these trees had dropped their leaves, as if it were autumn and not the middle of summer, so that wasn't really surprising. It was just another clue that they weren't in the real world anymore.

That didn't mean this wasn't real, of course. Just that it was a construct. Or another dimension. Or both.

It seemed to be getting darker as they moved deeper into the woods, and she couldn't tell if that was because the trees were getting thicker or because that much time was passing. She really had no idea how long they had been gone. If they had actually ended up in the same place as Waddles, he could've led them out of here. Waddles was a good pig like that. A lot smarter than most people thought. She almost wished he were here, except she didn't want him to be in danger.

The dangers in this place might not be easy to see, but she knew they were there. She trusted her instincts. It was more than just the trees, whatever the trees were. If this place was real, then it didn't follow the rules she knew to be true, which probably meant she couldn't trust her eyes or, really, any of her other senses. And if it wasn't real…. Well, if it wasn't, then she _really_ couldn't trust anything to be what it seemed, not when it could be whatever Bill wanted it to be. She'd have to depend on her gut.

"Dipper?"

"Yeah?"

"What if he set this up before? What if we just, I dunno, turned it on somehow? Triggered it? Made it come to life, even if he's not here?"

"We're not going to be stuck here." Dipper sounded more confident than he was, and anyone who didn't know him well might have actually believed him. "Look up ahead. Isn't that a light?"

It did seem to be one, shining brighter than the moon and not dancing about like a will-o'-the-wisp. _Still a trap_ , her mind whispered, but they didn't have any choice, and Dipper was taking precautions. He adjusted their course so that they angled toward the light from the left instead of coming at it directly; it was better to scout it out first if possible. Progress was slower than before, and not much quieter even though they were being careful, but at least the trees weren't trying to grab them now. Whatever that had been, it seemed to be over.

That, or the trees—or whatever sentience was behind them—were just biding their time and waiting for them to make a mistake. Or they'd been deliberately herded here. She wasn't going to rule out anything at the moment.

It took a good ten minutes longer than Mabel had expected, but finally the forest thinned and spilled out onto the shore of an endless expanse of black water. A lake, maybe, since it looked as still as glass. It reflected a perfect twin of the true source of the light, a lantern hung on a pole held by a boy in a funny red hat. He looked a bit like a giant gnome, actually, just minus the beard, especially in that old-fashioned cloak of his. He had been resting on the gunwale of a wooden rowboat pulled up on shore, but when they approached, he straightened, standing taller than either of them.

He didn't seem surprised to see them.

Still, he was the first person they'd seen in forever, and he was kinda cute. Even as Dipper tensed, Mabel got straight to the point. "Can you point us to the nearest road?"

"This is the closest you'll come to a crossroads here," the boy said. "This is the In-Between."

"In between what?" Mabel asked, still trying to figure out when the inevitable trap was going to be sprung.

The boy shifted, turning to look just at her instead of both of them, and she shivered as his gaze pierced through her. Scratch cute. Something about him—like everything else—was _wrong_ , and she couldn't believe she hadn't noticed it immediately. His stare was cold. Dead, almost, if it weren't for that intense focus. There might as well have been demon eyes staring out at her from his face. Not Bill's eyes, but…something else's. Someone else's. Which definitely wasn't impossible because Bill definitely had friends, or at least interdimensional creatures that he pretended were friends so he could attempt to manipulate them.

The boy's answer didn't convince Mabel he wasn't possessed or completely composed of magic or dream dust stuff in the first place. "You stand at the edge of the Unknown."

A glance told Mabel that Dipper wasn't getting this, either, and he was the smarter of the two of them. She hoped he'd figure something out sooner rather than later. She gave the boy a brilliant smile, letting the lamplight catch on and reflect off her braces. "So how about you tell us how to get back to the Known, handsome?"

Her charms had no apparent effect. "That is a choice only you can make."

Mabel frowned; that answer didn't make any sense to her. She turned back to Dipper, leaning in to whisper into his ear. "Something about this guy stinks. Is he even real?"

Dipper didn't answer her, which probably meant he hadn't figured that out yet. "What are the options?"

One of the options had to be the boat, which had definitely seen better days. It didn't look like it could fit three of them. She wasn't even sure it would hold one without sinking. They shouldn't _need_ to cross this lake since they'd never crossed one in the first place, but if this was one of Bill's traps, then they were less likely to die if they played along until figuring out the best way to bust out of here.

She concentrated on the boat for a few long seconds, imagining it sprouting a mast and sail and everything else, but absolutely nothing changed. Wherever they were, imagining things didn't make them real. That wouldn't make escaping any easier, but it had been worth a shot.

The boy's head swivelled towards Dipper. "You can cross," he said, gesturing with his free hand to the lake behind him, "or you can stay."

Mabel had a feeling they weren't going to be picking either of those options. Dipper liked to figure out what the rules were and then break them; she saw no problem with that, even though she was just as happy to charge in without a plan. Still, Dipper continued the conversation as if they were perfectly content to play along. As if they'd never been tricked by a demon before. "Why would we cross if we're trying to get home? We didn't come from that direction."

"Are you sure?" There was amusement in the boy's voice this time, a sort of dark gloating as if he were confident that he knew far more than they. "You've lost the path and lost your way, and the forest is not kind."

"This is the first time we've seen the lake," Mabel interjected.

"Is it really?" The boy's head cocked to one side as he asked, and suddenly Mabel doubted herself, doubted Dipper. What if they'd gotten turned around at one point? They could have walked along the lake's shore before and not realized it was there. The trees were thick, and with no wind, there was no sound of lapping water.

Except.

Except she could still hear the wind, moaning through groaning trees and skittering about loose leaves, and she could see it catching the boy's cloak as readily as it caught her own hair, and she could feel the cold biting in gusts through her sweater.

But the lake was still.

She took a step back, only remembering her injured ankle as pain spiked upwards to her knee. "Dipper—"

"I know." Dipper hadn't kept step with her, but he let her go and she watched as his hands balled into fists. He felt this, too. It wasn't just her. And after helping her along, he knew she wouldn't be able to outrun this guy if it came to that.

"Look, whoever you are," Dipper said to the boy, "if you're not going to help us, what are you doing? Trying to stall us?"

Mabel hadn't been expecting an answer, but the boy's face split into a too-wide grin. "I keep watch for lost souls," he said. "Keep the lantern lit. Guard the woods. Help you to cross, if that's your deci—"

Dipper's fist caught the boy on the corner of his jaw. The boy's head snapped sideways and he stumbled back, one of his flailing arms catching the lantern pole as he fell into the boat and cracked his head on the side. Mabel lunged forward to catch the falling lantern before it hit the water; it was almost completely dark out now, and clouding over to boot, so the lantern was their best source of light. She climbed carefully to her feet, not wanting to put so much as a toe in that water, and turned back to Dipper, who was cradling his left hand.

"I forgot how much this hurts," he hissed, wincing as he straightened his fingers. "I think I might've broken something." He didn't mean that, though; she could see him wriggling his fingers, and this wasn't Dipper's first time in a fistfight anyway. It probably wouldn't be his last.

Sure enough, Dipper's arm snaked around to support her a second later. "C'mon, we need to go. Can you keep hold of the light or do you want me to carry it?"

Mabel shrugged him off, lifting the lantern higher to get a better look at the boy who was sprawled across two seats and a pair of oars. "He's out cold," she said. "We don't need to run away before we have answers."

"Mabel—"

"It's not like we'd make it far with the lantern, anyway. He could follow the light. But look at him, Dip. He looks young. Like us. What's to say he isn't human, too?"

"I don't know, maybe the way he was acting? Or talking? Or the fact that he's here in the first place?" Dipper threw up his hands. "What's it matter? You even said you didn't think he was real!"

"That was before you caught him by surprise, and between you and the boat, you knocked him out. Demons aren't that easy to take down, and neither are their creations." She waited a few seconds to see if the boy would move. He didn't. "I don't think he's faking. He hit his head pretty hard on the boat."

Dipper didn't look convinced. "He isn't real."

"But what if he is? What if he's just trapped here? Like we are? Do you really want to leave him here?"

Dipper rolled his eyes. "Mabel, none of this is real. Why would he be?"

"He's here, and no one else seems to be." Dipper opened his mouth, but Mabel cut him off. "That alone would raise flags, so why not create a more welcoming situation if you were trying to trap someone? He didn't exactly lull either of us into a false sense of security." _Unless that's what this is_ , her mind whispered, but she ignored it. This was one of the times it was better to follow your heart than your head. If they could help, she didn't want to just leave someone here. "And even if he was possessed earlier, he might not be now. Limitations of the human body, remember?"

"I got possessed _one time_!"

"You made a mistake. Maybe he did, too." She pointed at his hat, which had landed at their feet. "Grab that for me, will you?"

Dipper frowned but did so, handing it to her. Mabel inspected it for a moment, noting its fraying hem and other imperfections she wouldn't expect to see from a mere fabrication. Bill hadn't given everyone in Mabeland flaws, and she was pretty sure that wasn't just because it was meant to be perfect. He hadn't spent enough time in their world to know the little sorts of details to look for when it came to making stuff _real_.

But this? This was real. She was confident in that. Bill's hat and tie had been more illusion than reality, altering or regenerating as necessary. They hadn't ever shown wear. But this had character, had a story behind it…a story that might only be known to the boy who had been wearing it.

"This is missing its outer trim," she said quietly. "You can see where someone's been at it with scissors. It might be an old Santa hat." She looked back at Dipper. "It's definitely not the quality I'd expect from someone like _him_." Dipper would know who she meant; that was one of the reasons he was so eager to get out of here. And she understood that, she did, but she also trusted her gut. "I don't think this guy's our enemy, bro-bro. I think he's in the same boat as us. And he might have more answers than we do."

Dipper stared at her, but he knew when she'd made up her mind. He also knew how often he was actually successful in changing it. "I'm not getting in that boat," Dipper muttered finally, but he reached over to shake the boy awake.

The boy groaned as Dipper's prodding pulled him back to reality. His eyes opened, quickly closed, and then slowly blinked open again. A trace of confusion crossed his features before he pushed himself upwards with a muttered curse, one hand tentatively touching the back of his head and his jaw in turn. He looked at the two of them with suspicion—not unexpected, given where they were. Wherever this was. "Where's Greg?" he asked, his voice sounding more natural this time, less…less _demon-y_. No gloating smugness or vague threats, just sincere concern, a healthy helping of wariness, and a touch of fear. "Who are you guys? And where…." His voice trailed off, and his eyes grew wide.

Mabel noticed he was staring at the lantern she held. The blood had drained from his face and he swayed where he sat, rocking the boat. Dipper reached out to steady him, and the boy flinched away, regaining some of his composure even though he still looked like a ghost.

"I'm Mabel," she said, taking pity on him. "That's Dipper. We were looking for Waddles. He's my pig. I'm guessing you haven't seen him."

"I'm Wirt," the boy whispered. He was still fixated on the light. "Where did you get that lantern?"

"From you." She held out his hat. "This is yours, too."

Another flash of fear. She wondered if the hat itself was somehow tied to whatever had been possessing him, but he climbed out of the boat with Dipper's help and took the hat back. He clutched it tightly in one hand and opened his cloak with the other, staring at his clothes with growing confusion. "This is my Halloween costume."

He hadn't spoken loudly enough to be directing that comment at them, but Mabel flashed him another smile as if he had. "You mean _Summer_ ween costume. Halloween was ages ago, but Summerween's next week!"

Dipper caught her eye and shook his head. Mabel stuck her tongue out at him in return. Dipper, of all people, shouldn't point fingers when it came to accidentally agreeing to demonic possession. The boy—Wirt—probably hadn't realized what he was doing. Sure, she didn't have solid proof that he'd been possessed, but it seemed like a pretty good guess, and the fact that Dipper wasn't grabbing her and trying to run meant that he thought so, too, and was willing to give the boy a bit of rope. He'd have a chance to prove he was the human boy he seemed to be, and they'd watch to see if the demon—if he was still a demon, which was undoubtedly Dipper's view even if it wasn't hers—accidentally hanged himself in the meantime.

Still, as far as she could tell, whatever demon had been possessing Wirt had been forced back into the astral plane, and his real spirit had taken the opportunity to reclaim his body. The apparent amnesia was new, admittedly, but it wasn't a stretch to think that the effects of demonic possession differed depending on which demon was actually doing the possessing.

Or maybe the demon had just been controlling him and not full-out possessing him? Just planting suggestions or using him more like a marionette than a sock puppet? That might explain the amnesia. She'd have to ask Dipper when this was over. She didn't want to scare the poor boy off when he'd just regained his senses.

Wirt looked between the two of them before turning in a slow circle, even though he wouldn't be able to see much beyond the circle of light cast by the lantern. "Is Greg still here? What about Beatrice?"

"You're the first person we've seen," Dipper said. "And I know you must be worried about Greg and Beatrice, but this is important. What's the last thing you remember?"

"I'd promised to take Greg for ice cream," Wirt said slowly, "so we went, and then we ran into Sara and…." He shrugged helplessly, spreading his hands. "I put my foot in my mouth, I guess, but she was really nice about it, and…. I dunno. She was going to come back to our place. To listen to some music. It's a thing we do."

"But this was on Halloween?" Dipper prompted.

Wirt started to shake his head, winced, and said, "No, it's summer." He looked out at the bare trees, at the leaves rustling on the ground, and shuddered as the wind curled its icy fingers around him. "It's supposed to be summer." He shoved the hat back onto his head. "Halloween was months ago. It's supposed to be over."

Dipper's eyes narrowed. "What's supposed to be over? Did you run into anyone—any _thing_ —strange on Halloween? Did you make any deals?"

"I don't…." Wirt wrapped his arms around himself and shivered. "This doesn't matter. I can't stay here. I need to find Greg. I'm responsible for him."

Dipper caught his arm as he started to move away. "Did you make any deals?" he repeated. "Anything that might be _taken_ as a deal?"

"Or would anyone have made one on your behalf?" Mabel added. "That could've happened if you ever told someone they could make a decision for you."

Wirt just stared at them, so Dipper released him in favour of pinching the bridge of his nose. "Look," he said, "I know this sounds crazy, but demons are real. And Mabel and I, we think that's why you're here. You must have made a deal with one because you weren't yourself when we came across you. You were—"

"You were all spooky," Mabel interrupted. "Smiling too wide, saying vague, menacing things. All 'this is the In-Between' and 'you stand at the edge of the Unknown' as if that explains anything."

From the look on Wirt's face, he didn't appreciate her accompanying hand gestures and facial expressions. But the names also sounded familiar to him, unless she'd misjudged that flicker of recognition in his eye.

Dipper hadn't missed it, either. "Does that make sense to you?"

"I can't be back here," Wirt said. "I can't _still_ be here. You were talking about deals, right? The Beast offered me one, but I didn't take it. Greg…. Look. You've got to understand. He was turning into Edelwood. The forest was consuming his soul or claiming it or something like that, so the Beast offered to take his soul and put it in the lantern instead. Then, as long as I kept it lit, Greg wouldn't be gone. I mean, for a second, I was tempted, but then I thought about it, and that's dumb, isn't it? To wander around these woods forever, trying to keep a lantern lit? So no. I didn't take the deal. Beatrice and I freed Greg, I gave Beatrice the scissors she needed, and Greg and I got out of there. Out of _here_."

"Wait, Greg's your brother, right? So who's Beatrice? Why did she need scissors if you were stuck in the woods? Or were they a special pair of scissors? And what's Edelwood? And—"

"What do you mean by the Beast?" Dipper cut in, overriding Mabel's questions.

"Just…the Beast." Wirt spread his hands, as if the name explained everything. "I think he's the one who turns people—lost souls—into trees. Into Edelwood. So their oil can keep the lantern lit. But he's gone. It was his soul in the lantern all along. When I figured that out, the Woodsman blew it out."

"Are you sure?" Dipper asked. "It's usually not that easy to get rid of a demon."

Wirt crossed his arms. "We got the one out of Lorna easily enough once we realized. Who are you two, anyway? Why are you such an authority on demons?"

"We saved the world by stopping Weirdmageddon," Mabel said, enjoying as confusion settled back onto Wirt's face. "Not just us, of course. We had help, and Grunkle Stan was the real hero. But believe me, if that triangle had gotten his way, somewhere like this—" she waved her free hand at their surroundings "—would be downright normal."

"We think he's behind us being here," added Dipper. "Maybe he got to you, too, if it wasn't this Beast you mentioned." He frowned. "You said lost souls were turned into this Edelwood, right? So they were consumed by the forest to feed the Beast? Did you offer to switch places with Greg once you realized what was happening to him?"

"No," Wirt said, sounding as if that was the stupidest idea he'd ever heard, "I just tried to pull him free."

Mabel looked at Dipper and realized what he was thinking. "But Greg _is_ your brother." Wirt hadn't denied that assumption, at least. "So what if…what if he found _you_ turning into a tree and couldn't free you? What if he offered to switch places with you? What if _that's_ why he was in that position in the first place?"

"Freeing him would have broken the terms of the deal he'd made, rendering it null," Dipper agreed. "That could be why you're here."

"That's crazy," Wirt said, but he didn't sound convinced. "Greg just ran off."

"Are you sure? Even if he woke up and saw _you_ being turned into kindling?" Mabel looked over at Dipper; she was speaking to him as much as she was to Wirt. "I'd offer to trade places if it were my brother and it was the only way to free him. And Grunkle Stan offered to trade places with Grunkle Ford, even knowing what that would mean. And Dipper and I, we're…." This time, she wasn't shivering because of the wind. "The demon we think trapped us here. He shouldn't have been able to do that. But we tried to save Grunkle Stan, to bring his memories back, so maybe we brought back a piece of Bill Cipher, too."

It was the first time she'd spoken his name since coming here, and she half-expected him to appear, but the world seemed empty but for the three of them.

Wirt was the one to break the stretching silence. He took the lantern back from Mabel. "I never made any deals, and I don't know anything about some Bill Cipher, but if everything that I remember happening since Halloween is a lie, I need to find Greg. I need to—" His voice hitched. "I need to make sure he's safe."

 _That he's not a tree_. That's what Wirt meant. But pointing it out wouldn't make him feel any better. "So do you know where we are?"

Wirt hesitated. "Not exactly. I don't remember being in this part of the woods. But I'm more likely to recognize a landmark than you are."

"What landmark?" Dipper muttered as he walked back to Mabel. He offered her the abandoned lantern pole to use as a walking stick, and she took it, deciding she couldn't afford to be picky until she could run again.

"Another cursed body of water, maybe," Mabel said under her breath, taking one last glance at the black lake.

Dipper huffed in reply. She knew he didn't like this situation. He didn't trust Wirt. He definitely didn't trust that Bill wasn't behind this or that whatever demon had been possessing Wirt was actually gone.

Wirt held the lantern high overhead, and they stayed just within its light. Dipper started mumbling to himself within minutes, and after a while, Mabel asked him what he was going on about. "If we're right," he said in a low voice, "about his brother making a deal, then shouldn't he be a tree right now?"

"He told us what he knows," Mabel pointed out, "not necessarily what's actually the truth. Maybe he's more useful to the demon this way. Maybe he's supposed to get us hopelessly lost so _we_ turn into trees, and then he'll go back to waiting for someone to show up. He might not even realize he's doing this, though. Maybe he flips back and forth every time people show up, just so he can show a side to them that they'll trust."

Dipper groaned. "I don't want to think about him having a standing invitation to be possessed, but you could be right. If there's really oil in that lantern, someone must have filled it recently."

They had two obvious options: stay with Wirt or make a break for it. Mabel grimaced, not liking either one, and whispered, "Do you think this Beast is the one possessing him? Do you think he's the one in the lantern now?"

"The lantern was lit before, and it never went out," countered Dipper. "If the whole thing about keeping souls in it is true, it's not necessarily the demon's soul in there."

"His brother's? Or that other person's?"

"Beatrice," Dipper supplied absently. "Or his, if this is all just an act."

"I don't think it's an act. He seems genuine."

"Everyone does until you find out the truth." Then, louder, Dipper called, "Are we just going to wander around in circles?"

Wirt stopped and rounded on them. "I'm not deaf, you know. I can hear you talking about me. I'm not possessed, okay? Whatever that was…. It's over now."

"How can you be sure about that if you thought you were living your life back in the material plane until we found you?"

Wirt stared at Dipper for a long moment before his shoulders slumped and he let his arm drop, shrinking their circle of light. "Everything had worked out," he said softly. "Beatrice had the scissors she needed to change everyone back. The Beast was gone, and the Woodsman was free of his burden. And Greg and I were _home_. I mean, we were in the hospital at first, but we were back. And we lived our lives. How can none of that be real?"

"You can be shown what you want to see," Mabel said quietly. "I know that better than anyone. Nice illusions make the best traps. If you think everything is fine, you're never going to fight it. You'd never _think_ to fight it."

"And in the meantime," Dipper continued, "you're really here, acting as a puppet for the Beast and making sure lost children stay lost. And making sure the lantern keeps burning."

The light trembled as Wirt's hand shook. "So you think Greg's gone."

Mabel nudged Dipper and limped back into the circle of light. "We haven't seen anyone else, remember? Your brother might really have made it home. Maybe he made it because you stayed here." Seeing the look of dismay on Wirt's face, Mabel added, "I don't mean you need to _keep_ staying here, silly! Just that you probably did help your brother get home. And if he knows you're here, he's probably doing everything in his power to get you back." She smiled. "We can help with that."

"How?"

Mabel didn't actually know _how_. She was just confident they could help. If you didn't believe you could do something, you'd never get it done. "Let's just prove to you that your brother's not a tree first," she said instead, "so you stop worrying about that."

Wirt frowned, maybe because she'd dodged his question. Rather than calling her on it, though, he admitted, "I'm not sure I can find the right spot. Not if it's been months. And not…not if the lantern's been burning all that time. His tree might have been cut down already."

"You can't think like _that_ ," Mabel exclaimed. "You have to believe he's fine and that you'll get out of here." Remembering what he'd said about this place, she added, " _We're_ not going to turn into trees, not if it's only lost souls who do that. We're not lost if we just haven't gotten to where we're going yet."

"But I'm not even sure I know where I am!"

She grinned. "That's what makes it fun. Like a game. First person to figure out where we are wins!"

"But you don't—"

"Close your eyes," she commanded.

"What?"

"Close your eyes and spin around. I'd do it, but my ankle still hurts. Close your eyes and spin around and when you stop, we'll go in whichever direction you're facing. Then it'll be random, so Dipper can't say you're trying to lead us somewhere, and if you're not sure which is the best way to be going anyway, we're just as likely to be going in the right direction."

Wirt just gaped at her, even as Dipper sighed and closed his eyes and began to spin. He flung out his arm as he stopped, pointing to her left. "Let's go that way. I'll lead." He took the lantern in his right hand and struck out before Wirt could form a coherent protest.

"It's best not to overthink things," Mabel confided as she grabbed Wirt's hand to pull him along, "especially when you're up against a demon that likes mind games. I don't think you need to worry about being controlled by the Beast anymore, though. If he could've controlled you again without any trouble, he would have done it already."

"Thanks. I think."

Now that he wasn't possessed or being controlled or whatever anymore, Mabel liked being with Wirt. He reminded her a bit of Dipper, and the woods seemed less scary now that he was with them. They were less alone, and now they had someone else to fight for. She felt sorry that he'd been separated from his brother, but that just made her more determined to get them all out of here. They'd figure something out, just as soon as Wirt knew for certain that his brother was out there waiting for him to come back.

"I think there's a cabin up ahead," Dipper called after about fifteen minutes of ducking under branches and jumping fallen logs (or, in Mabel's case, sliding over with Wirt's help).

Wirt quickened his step at Dipper's words and reclaimed the lantern, raising it high and striding forward so fast that Mabel had to scramble to keep up. "That's the Woodsman's house!"

The house looked abandoned, but Wirt didn't stop to examine it. He was familiar with this part of the woods, skirting a river and heading past what might have once been a mill in favour of the trees on the other side of the clearing. Judging by how fast he was moving, he was close to where he'd seen Greg being turned into Edelwood. Mabel wasn't really surprised when, less than five minutes later, Wirt came to an abrupt stop and dropped to his knees.

"There's no tree here," he said when Mabel and Dipper finally caught up to him.

"More importantly," Dipper said as he knelt to run his hand over the ground, "there's no sign of a stump, either. If this is the place, then you're right. You freed your brother." He got back to his feet and pulled Wirt up. "So now we just need to free you."

Wirt bit his lip. "I still don't think I made a deal with the Beast, but Greg…. On our last day, before he ran off, he was trying to be a leader. He was certain we'd get home. He hadn't given up hope. But I had, even after the Woodsman had told me it was my responsibility to get us out of here. So maybe you're right. Maybe the Beast had laid claim to me. And maybe Greg…. Maybe he did save me. Or try to." He swallowed and looked at them. "So doesn't that mean, if I'm here now, that I can't leave without trading places with Greg again? He doesn't deserve that. I'd rather stay."

"You don't need to. We're getting you out of here," Mabel promised. "Right, bro-bro?"

"Right." Dipper started to pace, walking in a tight circle around them. "But unless the Beast shows himself, we can't renegotiate the terms of your contract. And we can't just break it without repercussions. Which means we need to find a loophole."

"But I didn't make a contract! I just…I just thought, for a little while, that we were lost for good."

"Which is why you were. Because you gave up hope." Mabel looked at Dipper to make sure she was right, and when he nodded, she continued, "But now you have something to fight for. You don't have to guard the woods, keep watch for lost souls, or ferry people across to the far shore."

Dipper stopped. "Keeping the lantern lit," he said. "That was the other thing you said you did."

Wirt shifted on his feet. "I really hope you're wrong about that."

"Your words, not ours. But we can work with that." Dipper smiled. "You said you thought the Beast's soul was tied to the lantern, right? And that the Woodsman had blown it out?"

"Yes, but—"

Dipper held up a finger. "If you were right all along, then that's your loophole."

Wirt blinked at him.

Mabel didn't get it, either.

"Isn't that when everything started shifting for you?" Dipper asked. "When you thought you'd finally managed to get home? Wasn't it after you'd said that?"

"Well, yes, but—"

"Then that's when it started. The Beast controlling you. Maybe he wasn't really possessing you, but he wouldn't need to be _in_ you to control you if you already belonged to him. The moment you became a lost soul, you became his property. Think of it more like an implicit contract rather than a deliberate deal. And if you really had discovered his weakness and the Woodsman was willing to blow out the lantern, then the Beast would want to prevent that. That's when you would've become more useful to him as a puppet than as a tree to be fed to the lantern."

"Because if the Woodsman was willing to blow out the lantern," Mabel realized, "then that means he knew the Beast had tricked him into keeping it lit. And the Beast needed someone to stop the Woodsman from blowing it out—or to light it again before it was too late—and then to keep the lantern trimmed and burning."

"Clever, aren't you?" The voice was coming from Wirt's mouth, but it wasn't entirely his anymore. "Pity cleverness won't help you find your way home."

Mabel jerked, but the events of the previous summer and her extracurricular activities since had quickened her reaction time. She swung the pole-turned-walking-stick at Wirt, _hard_ , even as he moved toward Dipper. Toward the lantern.

Dipper had been standing between Wirt and the lantern, but he must have been expecting something like this because he had already dropped. Since Wirt had leapt forward to grapple Dipper, the pole swung high. Mabel took a step to try to keep her balance and crumpled when her ankle gave out.

Dipper's hat was gone. Wirt was already on him, and as Mabel watched, Wirt grabbed a fistful of Dipper's hair and yanked his head back. Away from the lantern. Dipper yelled and fought, trying to wriggle and wrestle his way out, but Wirt was stronger than he looked. At some point, Dipper had managed to open the door on the lantern, and now he simply seemed to be trying to free a hand to knock over the lantern before Wirt had secured his hold well enough to take it.

Which meant Dipper was being an excellent distraction, and she had time to get back on her feet and gain some leverage.

Wirt—not-Wirt—ignored her.

That was his mistake.

He must never have had to deal with siblings before, let alone twins. The _real_ Wirt wouldn't have made such a foolish mistake since had a brother. The real Wirt would have known better than to discount her. Because if she could take out Wirt from here, she didn't need to expose herself by running for the lantern and just giving him a new target. They could try to wear him out by switching off, but it was much easier to just knock him out again, especially when she doubted she could run far.

Mabel steadied herself, hefted the pole, and aimed for his temple.

He ducked.

There was still a shriek and a sickening crack as the pole connected.

She dropped the pole and lurched forward as Dipper's screams filled her ears. His arm was bent at an unnatural angle behind his back. Somehow, Wirt had anticipated her and wrenched Dipper's arm from its socket, holding it up in the path of the pole, and then she'd…she'd….

Wirt was already reaching for the lantern.

Dipper had stopped struggling, curling in on himself in the pain. No. No one was allowed to hurt her brother like that. Mabel roared and flung herself forward, reaching out for the lantern. She just had to beat Wirt to it. She couldn't let him get it back, not after what he had done. Whatever demon possessed him, controlled him, whatever— She wasn't about to let it win. She couldn't.

Her fingers hit hot glass a second before his could clasp the lantern's handle.

The lantern tipped.

Rolled.

Lay open just as another gust of wind blew through the clearing.

The light inside flared.

And then it went out.

* * *

A/N: Complete for now but may be continued if there's enough interest.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Happy birthday, Nhi! Here's Part II.

* * *

He became aware of the steady beeping first, and then aware of the fact that he was aware of it. More sounds and sensations swirled over him—the high-pitched whine of machinery, a firm mattress beneath him, the sharp smell of some sort of antiseptic, inconsistent waves of suffocating heat, a mouth that seemed completely deprived of saliva, and—childish babble?

Greg?

 _Greg!_

Wirt tried to say something. He tried to move. He didn't manage either. Not coherently, anyway. He managed to pry open his eyes— _why was it so_ bright _?_ —and lift a finger, but he felt stiff and exhausted. He wasn't entirely sure he had actually managed to make a sound, either. If he had, it hadn't been heard over Greg.

Greg was perched on the end of his bed in the hospital room— _when had he ended up in the hospital?_ —and Wirt could feel the steady swinging of Greg's feet through the mattress. Greg didn't notice that he was awake; instead, Greg stared up at the ceiling, counting the dots on the tiles.

Greg's voice—every sound, really—was distorted, as if Wirt were listening to it from underwater, but he could still make out the words. "Six hundred and forty-two, six hundred and forty-three, six hundred—"

A shrill series of beeps went off elsewhere, an alarm, but Greg continued unfazed.

The hum in the background grew louder, like someone had turned downed the volume on the rest of the world so that only the hum remained. Wirt shut his eyes again and tried to focus solely on Greg's voice, but it was getting harder and harder to make out. He needed something to ground him. He needed…he needed….

* * *

The next time Wirt woke, Greg was gone. There was a nurse, doing…something…. Why couldn't he think clearly? A syringe and an IV and—was that connected to his arm?

He tried to say something again and managed a sort of grunt that caught her attention. She smiled at him and said something, but there was water rushing in his ears, and he was just so tired….

* * *

Wirt lost track of time. Even once he became more lucid, everything seemed to blur together. Nothing made any sense, ether.

Greg came by daily, sometimes on his own but usually with at least one of their parents in tow. A couple of his friends stopped in, but never for very long; they'd all try to make small talk and then, when uncomfortable silence swelled too often for too long, invent an excuse to leave. No one really knew what to say.

He'd been in the hospital. He knew that much. He still wasn't sure why. Until he'd caught sight of green leaves on the trees outside, he'd feared that it had never been summer at all, that it was still shortly after Halloween, that he'd never woken up until now and that everything he remembered—because he did still remember _that_ , at least most of it—was just something invented by his subconscious.

Greg was the one who finally told him the story. No months' long coma or anything terrible like that, just a horrible fever. Admittedly, it had been a fever that had stubbornly stayed upwards of a hundred and three for days, and with him eating nothing and sweating out or vomiting the little he did drink, his parents had bundled him up and taken him in, and there he had stayed.

Wirt remembered none of that.

"You weren't acting like yourself," Greg informed him the night Wirt was finally released. He sat on his bed, swinging his legs much like he had at the hospital; Wirt stood in front of him, desperate for answers. He had thought it was safer to ask questions in Greg's room than in his; in here, their parents might think they were merely playing and not bother to listen in. "You kept saying weird things. Mom says you were delicious."

Wirt frowned. "You mean delirious?"

Greg hummed and nodded. "But then the fever broke and you got better. I think it was because Jason Funderburker kissed you." Wirt stared at him, but as Greg continued, blithely unaware of Wirt's unease, Wirt realized he had been talking about his frog. "I wasn't supposed to bring him in but he wanted to come visit you, too."

Wirt swallowed and glanced at the table where the pet frog's giant habitat sat, but it was empty. "I'll have to thank him, then. Where is he?"

"In your room. He missed you."

Right. He should have guessed. "How long was I gone?"

Greg's legs stopped swinging. "Forever," he said. Somehow, it didn't sound like an exaggeration. "I'm glad you're back now. Promise not to leave again?"

Wirt forced a smile on his face. "What makes you think I'm going to leave?" he asked instead, reaching over to ruffle Greg's hair and diving to tickle him as he dodged.

The distraction worked. Wirt was glad; he couldn't make that promise. Not yet. He didn't think he could keep it yet.

It hadn't been delirium. It hadn't been a dream. It had been too _real_ for that.

Mabel and Dipper, whoever they were, had helped him. Had _freed_ him. He had to at least try to help them in return. He wasn't sure how yet, wasn't even sure if he'd be able to find them, but he was going to try.

* * *

"What are you doing?"

Oh, no. He'd hoped to get away before Greg found him. He turned as Greg trotted into his room and smiled. He didn't want to lie to his brother; Greg didn't deserve that. "I need to help a couple of friends."

Greg was silent for a few seconds, taking in the duffle bag that was already stuffed full of clothes and toiletries and survival supplies and everything else Wirt thought he might need. Wirt braced himself for the inevitable questions: _Why are you leaving? Where are you going?_

Instead, he got, "Why are you packing your Halloween costume?"

"Because Summerween's next week," Wirt answered automatically, but even as he said it, he didn't know if that was true. It was practically next week already, and he wasn't sure when he'd met the twins (he was convinced they were twins, not just siblings). Time in the Unknown was different than it was here. Days there could be minutes here, so days here…. Mabel and Dipper were probably home by now.

Or they might never have made it back.

Then again, if time did pass so differently, it didn't make sense that he'd lived two lives. Even if he couldn't remember any more of his time in the Unknown than when he'd been with the twins, the lantern had been burning brightly; he'd been there for a while, or at least regularly. There wouldn't have been time for years to pass between his visits. Something didn't add up.

But they had been real. He knew that. He'd even gone to the library to do as much research on them and the little he knew about them as he could. He could recall everything from then clearly, much more vividly than if it had just been a dream. The names they had given him were Dipper and Mabel. They had a pet pig named Waddles and great-uncles named Stan and Ford. They had fought someone called Bill Cipher.

The names hadn't proven useful, especially when the only one with a last name he knew was supposed to be a demon. But some of the other odd things they'd mentioned—Summerween and Weirdmageddon— _had_ helped him narrow it down. He wasn't sure how reliable the information was, of course, but every mention of those words—however sketchy—seemed to lead him to one place, and by combing through online newspapers, he'd been able to put some people with those names in that town.

It was a crazy idea, but he didn't know what else to do.

So he was packing a bag, and he'd used his money to buy a bus ticket to Gravity Falls, and he hoped his parents wouldn't kill him once they read the note he was planning to leave behind.

He had twenty minutes.

"That sounds fun. I'll pack mine, too."

"You're not coming, Greg."

"Why not?"

Wirt's hands shook, so he stuffed the old army cloak into his suitcase to cover up his body's betrayal. "Because I won't be able to protect you."

"Well, maybe I can protect you."

 _That's what I'm afraid of_. Wirt didn't want Greg to try to sacrifice himself like that again. He took a slow breath. "I need you to take care of Mom and Dad."

"They can take care of themselves. They have each other. Who will you have if you don't have me?"

Wirt _dearly_ hoped the answer to that question wasn't _the Beast_ or any other demon, including this Bill Cipher, but he couldn't explain anything. He couldn't explain how he had seemingly been in two places at once, living two different lives. He couldn't explain his lost time there or even his lost time here. What if none of it been real after all, and he'd simply imagined meeting Dipper and Mabel and pulled out some tidbits of information from his subconscious while in a feverish state?

Or was this the life which wasn't real?

Wirt swallowed. He didn't know. He wasn't sure who he could trust. If that had been real and this wasn't….

 _Nice illusions make the best traps._ That's what Mabel had said. And wasn't she right?

 _You can be shown what you want to see. If you think everything is fine, you're never going to fight it._ How was he supposed to know what this was if illusions could be so convincing?

No. He had to trust that it was all real, somehow. As real as his previous trip over the garden wall and into those woods with Greg on Halloween. He didn't have Dipper's apparent understanding of deals with demons, but he could understand the gist of it. If Dipper had been right—partially right, considering this life was real, too—and he had still belonged to the Beast, then maybe he _had_ been more useful to the Beast as a puppet. And maybe he _had_ stopped the Woodsman from blowing out the lantern. But maybe he had still followed Greg back to this world, had still been able to live his life here….

Until the Beast needed him again. Until he was called back. To guard the woods. Keep watch for lost souls. Ferry people across the lake.

Keep the lantern burning.

And as long as that happened, the Beast didn't need him the entire time. The lantern could have burned without its guardian in that quiet corner of the woods as long as he returned regularly to harvest Edelwood to feed it—and to keep children from finding their way out of the woods so that their souls could be claimed by the Beast, too.

He couldn't remember falling ill at all this year, didn't know if it had happened with any regularity or if this last fever had been mere coincidence. He doubted it, though. Fever, flame…. It had to be connected.

Especially since he couldn't remember what had happened before he'd woken in the hospital.

Not really.

Dipper had said something about keeping the lantern lit, about being more useful as a puppet than as a tree, and then….

And then nothing, not even a blur or the vague sense of a fading dream.

That scared him.

Even more terrifying was the fact that he didn't know if it was over.

This was the first time he was aware of it, but that was because Mabel and Dipper had snapped him out of it while he'd still been there. That didn't mean he was free. It didn't mean the Beast was gone, that the lantern had gone out, or even that Dipper had been right in thinking it a loophole. It didn't mean the Beast couldn't pull him back there and use him again.

"Wirt?"

He couldn't remember what Greg had said, if he'd even asked a question.

"I'm going to go pack. You need me."

Wirt turned, but Greg was already disappearing. _No_ , he wanted to say. _Don't. What if I can't protect you? I don't want you mixed up in this. Not again. Please, just stay here._

But the words didn't come. Greg was right: Wirt _did_ need him. He was terrified. He didn't know what he was getting into. Having Greg's unshakeable faith by his side would be a comfort.

But losing it, and knowing it was his fault? Could he really risk that? Again?

Wirt sighed, pulled out his wallet, and began counting his money; if this was going to be a trip for two, he needed to make sure he had enough to cover everything. Greg was _not_ going to suffer because of him. Not again. Not in this. "I'm going to protect you, Greg. I swear, this time, I'll keep you safe."

* * *

The bus stop in Gravity Falls was nothing more than a sign and a bench on the outskirts of town. Wirt stepped off the bus and looked around uncertainly, carrying both his bag and Greg's. Greg was humming as he followed Wirt. He didn't feel…whatever this was. If he did, it didn't bother him.

It wasn't something Wirt could put his finger on. It felt like he'd stepped into an electrical field, like the hairs on his arms should be standing up even though they lay flat. He couldn't hear anything, but there was still…something. Not a hum, exactly, but a…a….

There was a small _pop_. Wirt turned, spotting the redheaded girl leaning against a tree on the other side of the road as she asked, "So, who are you two attached to?"

"Um…."

"I'm Greg," Greg said, bounding across the road to the girl as she blew another pink bubble. "That's my brother, Wirt. We're on an adventure!"

The girl popped this bubble, too, and cracked a smile. She uncrossed her arms and crouched down to Greg's level. "Nice to meet ya, Greg. Now, what makes you think you and Wirt are going to find an adventure in boring old Gravity Falls?"

"Not sure I'd call it boring," Wirt muttered, because if this place had demons, too, it couldn't be. And Mabel may not have explained what she meant by Weirdmageddon, but if half of what he'd found online had even a smidgeon of truth….

The girl's eyebrows shot up and she looked over at Wirt. "Sounds like you'd enjoy a trip to the Mystery Shack."

"What's the Mystery Shack?" Greg asked.

"Exactly what it sounds like." The girl winked. "It also happens to be where I'm headed; my break's over. I brought the golf cart if you'd care for a ride. I'm Wendy, by the way."

Wirt had no idea where he should start looking, and he vaguely recalled something about the Mystery Shack, so he smiled. "That would be nice, thanks."

"Follow me. I'm just parked over here," Wendy said, pointing, "and it's not far. If Greg doesn't mind squishing in the middle or sitting on your lap, Wirt, you can toss your bags into the back."

"What brings you out here if you're just on your break?" Wirt asked, glancing over at Wendy. She looked like she was about his age, but she didn't seem the type to just hang out at a bus stop for no reason. "You can't have very long."

He saw the smile drop from her face, and her expression became more guarded. "I like the fresh air," was all she said. He couldn't bring himself to believe her, but he didn't push it.

Once they were all settled in the golf cart, their luggage safely stowed in the rack at the back, the trip wasn't very long. Wirt suspected Wendy had driven carefully for Greg's sake, and he was grateful for that; the cart certainly looked battered enough to have been rolled at some point. He was already regretting allowing Greg to come along. He wasn't even sure what he was doing here anymore.

Wendy stopped around back and told them they were free to bring their bags inside for now—"Safer than leaving them out in the open."—although Wirt had no idea who would steal their luggage here. He wasn't even sure they had followed a road into the place; the main road looked to come from the other direction.

That's not to say the trail wasn't well signed; it seemed like every few trees, there was a sign declaring the Mystery Shack, with an arrow pointing the way. But he couldn't understand why these people would be advertising for it from anywhere but the main road. No one would be coming towards it from the woods.

Granted, from the looks of the place, he wasn't sure too many people would be coming towards it from the road, either. It looked barely a step above the place where Lorna and Auntie Whispers had lived. Ramshackle, though not abandoned. Falling apart despite a patchwork of repairs, though clean enough to be loved.

The chime above the door went as Wendy led them in, and Wirt heard, "Wendy, did they c— Oh, welcome, newcomers! Behold the Mystery Shack, where all—"

The spiel continued, but Wirt stopped listening in favour of staring. He'd had his doubts just seeing this place from the outside, but now…. It was all so obviously fake. He could see the stitches holding the mermaid together, the antlers on that jackalope were much too large to even be plausible, the merchandise looked cheap and corny…. The missing _S_ from the giant sign on the roof seemed to make the name true. This was more hack than anything else. Why else would there a wax head of Larry King just sitting on a shelf, glaring at them all from behind the counter? This place was one which was too confusing for people to make sense of it, not somewhere that offered a real sense of mystery.

"Wirt, Wirt, look at this! It's just like that painting at Unkie Endicott's! Of the ghost lady who wasn't a ghost! And I think her eyes are moving." Greg was grinning as he walked back and forth in front of the painting, staring at the canvas.

"You'll have to pay if you want to see more than just the shop," Wendy added as she plucked their bags from Wirt's grip and slid behind the counter with them. "We might have a new Mr. Mystery, but the rules of the business haven't changed."

Mr. Mystery smiled rather sheepishly. "We have added a family discount now."

"They got off the bus themselves," Wendy said before Wirt could come up with some excuse as to why their parents weren't around. "Apparently, they're looking for an adventure. I figured this would be a good place to start."

"Come on, Wirt." Greg tugged on his arm. "Let's go inside!"

"I don't think…." This was the wrong place to start, but Greg was looking at him that way, and how much could he deny him? He was only here because of Wirt. He'd volunteered to go headlong into danger because of Wirt. Didn't he deserve a bit of fun before that? "Um, you can go ahead of me, okay?"

He expected Greg to say something in protest, but he just chirped, "Okay!" and bounded through the door to the rest of the building. (Wirt wasn't sure if it could properly be called a museum when it just looked like a tourist trap.) Mr. Mystery laughed and followed him, presumably to give whatever passed as a tour or maybe to make sure Greg didn't break anything, which left Wirt with Wendy.

"Five bucks for kids," she said. "Are you going in, too?"

"Um." Wirt fumbled with his wallet for a moment before pulling out a bill and passing it to Wendy. "No. I can't. I…geez, I didn't think this through enough. Is there a good hotel in town? Or _any_ hotel in town?" Now that he'd seen the size of this place—or rather, the size of the bus stop and one of the main tourist attractions—he was beginning to understand why there had been so little information about it in general. "I need to figure out where we're going to stay."

Wendy blew another bubble of gum and managed to answer without popping it. "Hotel's not rebuilt yet. It wasn't a priority, I guess; we don't get a lot of people through here. But I can put in a good word with the guy who lives alone in the mansion on the hill if you don't mind doing a few chores to earn your keep. That'll mean more to him than money."

Wirt was in no position to be picky, and it couldn't be worse than what they'd encountered in the Unknown. "That would be great."

Wendy sucked the bubble back into her mouth and then put her hands on the counter and leaned across towards him. "Consider it done, then. But really, Wirt, you wanna tell me why you're here?"

He offered her a smile, though it probably wasn't very believable. "We're going on an adventure."

"In Gravity Falls?"

He'd expected her to question why he and Greg were alone, not doubt their choice of destination. "Yes?" It came out sounding like a question, even to his ears.

"Why here?"

Wirt swallowed. "Why does the hotel need to be rebuilt?"

"Burned down," Wendy answered without missing a beat. "But you, you're here for a reason, aren't you? Gravity Falls isn't exactly a place you'd just pick off a map. So why come here?"

The truth was crazy. Wendy might have lived crazy, too, but Wirt didn't know that for sure, so he settled on a piece of it. "A friend told me about it. She was going to be visiting here, too. She's looking forward to Summerween."

Wendy raised her eyebrows. "Summerween's tonight," she said, "and you can't really expect me to believe that you're following a girl out here when you came with your little brother."

"It's not like that," Wirt insisted, his cheeks burning as if to give lie to his statement. He was kinda sorta dating Sara, if he could believe the life he'd been living here, and he hardly even knew Mabel. "I just owe her and her brother a favour." They'd saved him, but Wendy wasn't going to understand that, and saying it would invite more questions than he could answer. He was having enough trouble with this impromptu interrogation as it was.

Wendy's eyes narrowed, but the next second, she was leaning back in her chair as if nothing was wrong. "Maybe I can help you then, kid. Who are you looking for?"

"Mabel," Wirt answered, a little annoyed at being called a kid (he wasn't even that much shorter than her; she didn't need to treat him like he was Greg's age) but not annoyed enough to make a big deal out of it when he could use her help.

Wendy sat up. "Mabel. You're looking for Mabel? Mabel Pines?"

 _Pines_ sounded right, but he'd never been sure if that really was her last name. "Mabel and Dipper." Wendy could take it as either confirmation or denial, depending on the truth. "They helped me with something."

"When?"

The question was earnest, but Wirt wasn't entirely sure why it mattered. "Last week."

"Last Tuesday?"

That was oddly specific. "I don't remember."

Wendy sighed. "Look, I'll be honest with you here, okay? You're right. Mabel and Dipper are supposed to be here. But they're not. They've gone missing. Their parents thought they might have run away to come here a bit early, but they never turned up, and if it's a kidnapping, there's been no ransom. When Stan and Ford caught wind of this, they started searching everywhere, but even _they_ can't find them." She said this as if Stan and Ford were far more likely to find the twins than the police, who were undoubtedly also looking for them if they were missing.

But maybe they weren't really _missing_.

He'd met them in the Unknown, after all.

Except that didn't make sense. No matter how many times he tried to reconcile it, it didn't add up. He and Greg had hardly been gone any time at all. They'd returned the same night despite spending more than one night in the Unknown. But then he'd woken up in the hospital again after being back in the Unknown. He remembered months of this reality, months he wasn't even sure he'd really lived if he'd been in the Unknown all along. But it was summer now, just as it should be, and it had been summer for Mabel and Dipper, too…. But then again, the lantern had been burning brightly, the same lantern that the Woodsman had worked so tirelessly to keep lit. Left alone for too long, it should have gone out.

Something wasn't right.

Something wasn't real.

Or something was blurring the lines.

"I know that look." Wendy again. "You know something. Please, tell me. They're my friends, too."

Why put signs in the woods, advertising where there was no road for them to be seen?

Wirt took a step back.

He never should have let Greg go off on his own. The Mystery Shack was small; that was to his advantage. If he yelled, Greg would hear him. But if he yelled, they would know—

Wendy vaulted over the counter, somehow easily clearing the various knickknacks and the jar of fake eyeballs for sale on the side. Her feet hit the floor with a thud. A hollow thud. There was a basement under here. He wondered whether this place, with all its fake attractions, hid its secrets below or above or in plain sight.

"Wirt. What do you know? _Tell me_. It's important."

 _Always doing what you're told._ Beatrice's voice, sounding through his head. He hadn't imagined meeting her any more than he had imagined meeting the twins, but if this wasn't imagination, either….

If neither was imagination, then something was fabrication, and he didn't know which. Not the twins, surely, if Wendy seemed to know them, but….

"Darkened dreams where demons run," Wirt whispered as he took another step back, "twisting truth till all is done."

 _Nice illusions make the best traps._

Just because he was free of the Unknown, it didn't mean he was free of the Beast. This might be a trick, part of some plan he didn't understand. He didn't know what had happened. Dipper and Mabel must have done something, but what if he wasn't _really_ back? What if this was just the dream world? Did that mean that the Beast was controlling him back in the Unknown?

He stepped back against something— _the vending machine_ , his memory supplied—and Wendy's hand shot out to catch his arm. "Wirt! What's going on? What demons are running around?"

He shook his head even as her grip tightened. That was just a snatch of poetry that seemed to fit his situation. _Everything_ felt twisted, sculpted to suit the Beast, and he didn't know—

Wendy pulled him up by his shirt and looked him in the eye. "Spill," she hissed as he yelped and then found himself struggling for air, feet kicking uselessly against smooth plastic in an effort to find purchase and maybe help him get free. " _Now_. Dipper and Mabel are in trouble, and if you don't tell me what you know—"

" _Wirt_!" came Greg's cry, barely overrode by Mr. Mystery's, "Wendy, what are you doing?"

Wendy dropped him, but one hand was closed around his wrist before he could run. "Soos, he knows what happened to Dipper and Mabel."

Mr. Mystery—Soos—looked startled and put one of his hands on Greg's head. It was meant to keep him from running as much as to calm him, Wirt suspected bitterly. "How could they know?"

"Don't know. The squirt might be clueless, but this one definitely isn't."

"Wirt?" Greg asked slowly, giving truth to Wendy's words. "What is she talking about?"

Wirt, not convinced he could break free of Wendy's grip, just shook his head.

"I thought we came here for an adventure," Greg said. "To help your friends. Like we helped Beatrice and she helped us."

Wirt closed his eyes. "I wasn't lying. I am trying to help them. But I need to figure out how first." He looked at Greg, knowing he was the only one who was going to understand the significance of the next statement. "I met them in the Unknown."

Wirt saw Soos and Wendy exchange glances as Greg tilted his head. "I don't remember them."

"That's because you weren't there."

"But we got back together."

Wirt shook his head again. "No. We didn't. Or maybe we did and I…. I don't know. I just know I was back there. And they helped me get back here. I think. I don't know. I don't know anything for sure. I can't remember exactly what happened." He turned to Wendy. "I think they might still be there."

"And where exactly is _there_?" demanded Wendy.

"The Unknown," Wirt repeated, knowing from Wendy's narrowed eyes that she wasn't impressed with that answer. "It's…. I don't know. It's another place. People can get lost there, but things aren't…. It's not like here."

"Another dimension?" asked Soos.

Wirt shrugged helplessly, but Wendy must have agreed because she finally released him. "Sounds like it. So how do we go there and bring them back?"

"I don't know."

"But you said—"

"I don't know! I can't remember. When I was with Greg, we got lost trying to find our way back to the main road. We didn't even realize we'd crossed anything, let alone ended up in a different dimension if that's really what it is."

"Then how did you get out of there?"

Wirt hesitated, not sure how much he could trust his memories, and Greg said, "I just remember being cold and wet. Was that from the snow?"

"No, we'd fallen into the water. I managed to get us ashore." If that memory was real. Maybe it _had_ just been the snow. Or maybe…. But he didn't want to think that this world was the fabrication. "That's not what happened to me last time. I don't know how I got back here. I didn't even realize I'd left here and was back in the Unknown until I met Mabel and Dipper. I…. It's like I woke up and they were there."

Wendy crossed her arms. "So what _do_ you know?"

Wirt spread his hands. "I don't know how much of this is accurate. The Beast…. The Beast is a demon, I guess. He haunts the forest and feeds on lost souls, and he was…." Wirt stopped. There was no good way to say this. "Dipper thought the Beast had been controlling me—"

"But he had to let you go!" Greg cried. "He promised. You could go home if I stayed with him instead."

Wirt's chest tightened as Greg confirmed the twins' theory. He hadn't wanted that part to be right. He didn't want to think that Greg would ever feel obliged to give up so much for him. He was the little brother; it was _Wirt's_ job to protect _him_ , not the other way around. He'd done a terrible job of it.

"You're not there now, kiddo," Wendy said, "which might explain some of this." She had taken up a defensive stance and didn't take her eyes off Wirt.

Soos held up one finger. "Um, quick thing, but _had been_ controlling you? As in not any longer or not currently? That seems like an important distinction."

Wirt sighed. "I'm not sure about that, either," he admitted. "Dipper thought he could find a loophole so that it would be over, and maybe that's what happened. Maybe that's why I'm back here now." Hopefully.

"But you never left," Greg said in a small voice.

Wirt swallowed. "I was in the hospital last Tuesday, wasn't I?"

Greg nodded. "The fever wouldn't break. Mom took you in the night before."

Wendy looked from Wirt to Greg and back again before stating the obvious. "So you don't know if you're really safe. All you know is that you're back here. Without the Beast, as far as you can tell." From her tone, she could guess a number of the things he hadn't explicitly said. Wirt nodded anyway. "And he's haunting your dreams?"

"Not…. Well, maybe? I…. I'm not actually sure. It's complicated. I think…. I think he's been pulling me back into the Unknown somehow." It made his stomach twist to think about it. If neither world was a fabrication, then maybe he _had_ been living in two different realities. Maybe the reason he never seemed to lose much time was because he was back under the Beast's control whenever he was close enough to the In Between for the Beast to reach out and pull him through to the Unknown.

Whenever he slept. Whenever he dreamed. If he'd left a piece of himself back in the Unknown—

"Is this my fault?" whispered Greg.

"No, it's not." Wirt stared at Wendy, daring her to contradict him. She didn't. Maybe she had a little brother, too. He hesitated and looked over at Greg. "You escaped. You're free. That's the important part. So try not to blame yourself for my mistakes. Can you do that?"

Greg nodded.

Wirt bit his lip. "I wish I understood this better. I'd give _anythi_ —"

Wendy's hand was suddenly clamped over his mouth. "Don't finish that thought. Don't even think it. That's too dangerous, even in here. He's too close."

 _Who's too close?_ But Wirt knew the answer to that, now that he knew the Beast wasn't the only demon to roam the realms. Mabel and Dipper had been worried about Bill Cipher. He, too, was supposed to be gone, just like the Beast, but—

 _It's usually not that easy to get rid of a demon._

Since Dipper had evidently been talking from experience, he should know. But they wouldn't have told Wirt about their demon unless they suspected he could still get to them despite whatever they had done. Hadn't they thought this Bill Cipher was the one who had trapped them in the Unknown? Maybe demons liked deals enough to strike them with each other and this one ensured the Pines twins were lost in the woods so the Beast could claim them.

In all fairness, Wirt wasn't exactly sure someone like Mabel could ever be claimed by the Beast—she was entirely too much like Greg for that to happen any way but deliberately—but it wasn't likely that demons actually struck fair deals.

Whatever had been between him and the Beast…. He had to hope that it was over, that Dipper had successfully found a loophole. Except it couldn't be over, not if Mabel and Dipper were still in there. He'd…he'd have to find a way back. Not with Greg; he wouldn't risk Greg again. And he might not know Wendy or Soos, but he didn't really want to risk them, either.

If…if he didn't come back, someone would have to see Greg home, and Wirt was sure they'd do that.

"I'm calling Stan," Wendy said, putting her cell phone up to her ear. "He and Ford need to hear everything you can tell them. Until they get here, stay at Old Man McGucket's. No exploring. We can't risk that."

"Risk what?" Greg asked, looking up at Soos.

No one answered.

* * *

Wirt had no idea where Stan and Ford had been coming from, but the Pines brothers arrived at Gravity Falls within two hours. Wendy had insisted on babysitting them in the meantime, even though Greg had spent much of that time happily chatting with Fiddleford McGucket, the man who owned the mansion Wendy had mentioned. Wirt wasn't entirely sure how someone like Fiddleford could afford to live here, but he knew better than to ask. He was just grateful to have a roof over their heads while they were here.

Wirt had half-hoped that Greg would set off exploring the mansion before everyone else arrived, but he listened very attentively as Wirt recounted what he remembered. Soos had closed up shop for the occasion, but even with Greg counting among Wirt's audience of six, it felt like there were too many people here. This was his story. His mistake. Did they really all need to bear witness to it?

Wirt knew that was silly; it just meant he had six more people who could help him figure this out. And as reluctant as he had been to involve Greg, having his brother here helped to ground him. Of course, Greg would occasionally chime in with questions Wirt couldn't answer— _Was the lake near where we took the ferry to Adelaide's? So what happened to the Woodsman? Couldn't you have wished on a star and visited Cloud City, too?_ —which invariably led to a discussion of the first time they'd ended up in the Unknown. Greg remembered that time with far more fondness than Wirt did. To him, it really had just been an adventure.

Not a nightmare.

The discussion invariably turned to ways to get Dipper and Mabel back safely. While the others started arguing over different tactics and possible strategies, Ford pulled Wirt into another room. Wirt might not have been able to figure out who was who right after meeting Stan and Ford, but it became very clear that Ford was the more serious of the two, for all that everyone seemed to care deeply about the younger Pines twins. Stan liked to joke, coming up with crazy ideas that must have some hope of working since they weren't immediately dismissed by the others, while Ford….

Ford had a look in his eye Wirt recognized from the face that had been haunting him in the mirror since he'd woken up in that hospital room. There was grim determination in there, sure, but it was touched by fear. Not just fear of the unknown, of not knowing what had happened, but fear born of the intimate knowledge of what _may have_ happened.

It made Wirt think there had been far more going on in this town than the newspapers had ever reported, even the columns that seemed at first glance to be fanciful stories written merely for entertainment.

The door shut on the others, closing them off, and Ford turned to Wirt. "I'm not going to leave those kids to the mercy of another demon," he said quietly, "but I'm not about to dismiss the possibility that this is a trick, either. I've been tricked too many times to blindly believe anything anymore."

Wirt didn't know what to say to that—he still didn't know if this was a trick, either—so he just nodded.

"If Dipper was right, and I have no reason to believe he wasn't, you were possessed by the Beast. Whether or not Dipper truly found a loophole in your deal with him is a moot point as long as that connection is still there. We'll need to break that to prevent further interpretations of your contract, especially if you aren't sure of the terms."

Wirt opened his mouth to ask how he was supposed to do that when Ford added, "But until then, we can use that connection to our advantage."

"How?"

Ford smiled, but it was far from reassuring. "Meet me at the Mystery Shack in three hours, and I'll show you."

* * *

Soos apparently had to go out for a family dinner at the local café—Wirt didn't ask, though there was obviously more to the story judging by the looks he'd received—and Stan had muttered about seeing to a few things so they could mount the rescue mission. Fiddleford had gotten excited about this prospect and stuck to Stan like glue, which he hadn't looked thrilled about. Ford had obviously been expected to join them, but he'd said something about splitting up in order to have enough time to cover everything. The argument had still been going on when Wendy had pulled them away and told them to find costumes to wear.

She had agreed to take them out for Summerween before she met up with her friends, though she did say it would be fine if they decided to stick around. When Wendy had handed them both pails for candy, Wirt hadn't argued. He didn't mind the implication that he needed a babysitter this time; now, it worked to his advantage. It meant he could be sure Greg was sufficiently distracted.

Ford had never told him to come alone, but if Wirt was going to keep Greg out of this, he had to be sneaky about it. When they were passing the edge of town nearest the Mystery Shack, Wirt bent down to tie his shoe and waved the others ahead, promising that he'd catch up soon. By some stroke of luck, Greg believed him, and Wendy—if she had any doubts—didn't call him on it.

Wirt fiddled with his shoelace for a few moments, waiting for them to get farther ahead before running into the woods. This time, the random signage was to his advantage, and he'd smuggled a flashlight along with a first aid kit under his cloak, so he could see where he was going without depending on the light of the (admittedly waxing) moon now that the sun had set.

Despite that, he nearly jumped out of his skin when a voice said, "That disguise won't fool anyone."

Wirt scrambled for the fallen flashlight before climbing back to his feet and brushing at his clothes. He swung the flashlight around wildly, looking for the source of the voice. The beam bounced off tree trunks and broken branches, leafy shrubs and spider webs, but nothing— "Who's there?"

"Little lower there, Stretch. We ain't all as tall as you."

Wirt swallowed but lowered the flashlight. If he weren't already acquainted with talking frogs, pumpkin-wearing skeletons, or bluebirds that had once been people, he would have found the idea of gnomes more disconcerting. Self-consciously, he straightened his hat. "Um…can I help you?"

"More me that's helping you, unless you're going to take over my post. I pulled the short straw when Shmebulock overindulged again." The gnome squinted at Wirt and scratched at his grey beard. "No, you're not from here. You're one of those that've been drawn here."

Wirt blinked. "What?"

The gnome pointed in the direction Wirt had been running. "The statue. It calls some of 'em. Like you. 'Smy job to make sure you don't get where you're going. So turn around or I'll raise the alarm."

"What?"

"Go on. Turn. Go back wherever you came from."

"But…. I can't."

"Suit yourself," said the gnome, and then he whistled, a shrill piercing thing that had Wirt wincing and reaching to cover his ears.

The whistle cut off abruptly. Wirt lowered his hands slowly, noticing an increased rustling in the underbrush that he wasn't naïve enough to attribute to wind or the usual forest wildlife. And then his sweeping flashlight beam caught a second gnome, and a third, and then he started seeing them by the dozens.

He took a step back. "You don't understand."

"We understand plenty," the first gnome said, grinning in a feral way that showed off rows of sharp teeth. He didn't advance, but Wirt had no illusions about what would happen if he tried to continue in this direction. He didn't want to get mobbed.

Wirt took another step back and shook his head, for all the good that would do. "I don't care about whatever statue thing you're talking about. I just need to get to the Mystery Shack."

More gnomes had appeared, every eye tracking him. It was unnerving.

Wirt didn't know what else to do, so he kept talking. "I'm—I'm trying to help my friends. Maybe you know them. Mabel and Dipper Pines?"

The hushed silence erupted into chatter, and finally a different gnome stepped forward, this one looking younger than most of the others. "You are acting on behalf of Mabel?"

"Um…I guess?"

"Or _for_ Mabel?"

"Uh." Wirt didn't know why this mattered. "For her? She and Dipper—"

"We could tie him up," a third gnome suggested.

"Throw him in the lake," said another.

"—gag him—"

"—leave 'im for the Manotaurs—"

"—the Multi-Bear—"

Wirt didn't understand half of the snippets of conversation he caught, but he didn't need to. "She needs my help!" he yelled over the din. "They both do. And they won't get that if I can't get to the Mystery Shack."

The gnome who had been questioning him held up a hand, and with some grumblings, the others quieted. "Carson, escort him to the Mystery Shack. Don't show him any mercy if he tries to lose you and double back. Steve and Jason, take his shift. Looks like this is an extra security night." There were a few more mutterings, but no one challenged the arrangement, and Wirt soon found himself with the first gnome as his escort.

The others—except, presumably, for Steve and Jason, and the brown-bearded one who had been giving orders—vanished with unsettling stealth, quite different from the show they'd made in appearing.

Wirt, happy enough to leave behind whatever that had been, followed Carson in silence for a moment before finally asking, "What statue?"

"We don't talk about it."

"But I don't know what it is!"

"That's the way to keep it."

"But what did you mean when you said I was drawn to it?"

"Doesn't matter."

"But—"

"No one'll tell you differently." Carson picked up his pace, moving much faster than something with such short legs should. Wirt ended up practically jogging after him and spending all his energy trying to keep the gnome in sight and not eating a mouthful of dirt, which effectively put an end to the questioning.

He panicked when he finally lost sight of Carson entirely, only to hear, "Thanks for the candy, Stretch!" and realize that he could see the Mystery Shack through the trees—and remember that his candy pail had been left behind in the forest.

It was a good trade, as far as Wirt was concerned. He would've ended up giving most of his candy to Greg anyway.

Barring a few flickering lights, the Mystery Shack was mostly dark when Wirt approached. The steps creaked under his weight, and he suddenly found its name much more fitting in this atmosphere. He knocked twice and tried the door. It was unlocked, but all he saw inside was a lava lamp set up on the counter by the cash register and the glow of the vending machine on the opposite wall.

"You sure you know what you're getting into?"

Wirt shrieked and spun. That hadn't been Carson's voice, nor Ford's. It had almost sounded like—

His flashlight beam caught the wax head of Larry King.

It winked at him.

He turned away quickly, sliding down to sit with his back against the counter. Maybe this was all a mistake. Surely this place was just proof that he wasn't really back in the real world yet, that this was all just another fabrication—

The vending machine's buttons suddenly lit up in a particular pattern. As he watched, it silently swung forward as if it were on a hinge to reveal a gaping hole. Somewhere below, light pulsed. Wirt could just make out stairs before darkness ate away at them again.

In for a penny, in for a pound?

He climbed back to his feet and aimed his flashlight at the stairs. They looked sturdy enough, and obviously someone was already down there….

He went carefully, keeping one hand along the wall above what looked to be the remains of a missing railing. The other hand held the flashlight so it illuminated both his feet and the stairs before him. Very quickly, however, he didn't need it; the light from below grew stronger, and as he put his flashlight away, he found himself in a laboratory of some sort.

Correction: what had _once been_ a laboratory of some sort and had since been abandoned.

Wirt's eyes swept over a number of exposed wires and clearly cobbled-together circuitry that were visible under the flickering lights. More than one screen had odd stripes of colour across it, and a couple were even cracked. He bit his lip and edged away from the nearest shower of sparks coming from a thick cable connected to a lever sticking out of the floor. The movement didn't take him any nearer Ford, who was bending over some kind of key panel. "Is this…safe?"

Ford didn't even turn around. "No."

"Then why are we even down here? This place looks like a fire waiting to happen!"

This time, Ford did look at Wirt. "We don't have a choice. We need to rip a hole into another dimension. I've done what repairs I can in the time we have, but I don't want to leave Dipper and Mabel in another nightmare for any longer than I have to. Now come here. I need to analyze your brainwaves if I'm going to find the right dimension."

"You… _what_?"

Ford sighed. "That Unknown of yours isn't the only dimension. If the Beast is tied to it and you're tied to the Beast, then you're the best option for finding the right place. We're much safer if we aren't doing this blind, and from the sounds of it, you've been there frequently." He held up his hands, which contained what looked like suction cups on the end of wires. "Come here."

Wirt swallowed but allowed Ford to attach him to the machine. "What happens if this goes wrong?"

"Depending on what happens, you might not even know."

"Comforting," Wirt muttered. His fingers tightened their grip on his hat and twisted. "What, uh, are you hoping is going to happen?"

"Something I never wanted to see again." Ford handed him a length of rope and a clip, pointed to a metal grip attached to the console, and added, "Tie yourself on."

Wirt did as he was told, trying his best to mimic Ford's own makeshift harness as the man fiddled with something on the console. The numbers on the nearest screen looked specific, but they weren't coordinates. If it was part of a code, it seemed too complicated to be easily broken, even by someone like Ford who talked as if he'd done this sort of thing before. The numbers changed even when Ford seemed to barely touch a dial, and it all looked a little too much like guesswork for Wirt's comfort. Needing a rope didn't exactly fill him with confidence, either. "What's this for?"

In answer, Ford walked over to a giant lever on the floor and threw his weight into pushing it forward.

Light exploded.

Wirt squawked and instinctively closed his eyes, but it wasn't enough. Colours danced against his eyelids, red shining through, and then—

Darkness began eating away at the light, a tiny solar eclipse.

Gravity decided to stop working properly.

Wirt's hat was torn from his grip. He saw it fly through the portal, there and gone in the blink of an eye. He was already feet first towards it, so he twisted in a futile attempt to reach the tiny metal handle he'd attached himself to. He could see the knot of his harness slipping, weaker than the pull of the portal.

The wires tore loose from his head.

Behind him, the portal flickered.

"Just hold on!" Ford yelled. "I'm going to bring them back." He was reaching to unclip his own harness, to let the portal drag him in. "Just keep the doorway open!"

The knot worked itself free.

Rope burned through his grip as he flew backwards.

Wirt's scream was torn from his throat, and then the lab—Ford— _everything_ —was gone.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: I missed Christmas, so I held out long enough to say happy birthday again to the amazing artist who drew the cover for this fic. Hope the extra-long chapter makes up for the wait. Enjoy! (And, for the record, it's come to my attention that there are OtGW comics. I have not read these comics. I didn't know Wirt and Greg went back to the Unknown in their dreams...)

* * *

Something was digging into his back. Wirt groaned. Had he fallen out of bed? It was so cold.

Then he opened his eyes, stared at the bare branches encroaching on his vision in the dwindling forest light, and remembered.

He sat up and winced, running careful, probing fingers over the tender spots on his back. Nothing seemed to be bleeding, and he miraculously hadn't broken his flashlight when he'd landed on it or lost his first aid kit coming through, but those were the only upsides. He knew this was the Unknown, that Ford's portal had gotten that much right—he didn't think he'd ever forget the feel of this place—but there was no sign of how he'd gotten here. And without a portal, he didn't know how he'd get home even if he did manage to track down Mabel and Dipper.

Ford had wanted him to stay behind, had wanted him to keep the portal open—however he'd expected Wirt to do that—and now, without Wirt and his connection to the Unknown, to the Beast that resided within, his doorway home had collapsed.

Wirt climbed to his feet and looked around, not sure what signs of a dimensional portal looked like but hoping he'd recognize them when he saw them. If he saw them. Unfortunately, unless the portal was suddenly masquerading as a deciduous tree or hiding amongst the detritus on the forest floor, ready to activate whenever he returned with Mabel and Dipper, he was out of luck.

It was quiet here. There was the wind rustling in the leaves, the occasional creaking complaints of the trees, and his soft footfalls as he moved towards a spot of dark red that turned out to be his hat, but no scampering of small animals just out of sight. No rustling of feathers from birds above flitting to a different branch. No animal calls, no murmured conversation that might point him towards a trail or a town, no distant strains of music from a riverboat or anything else.

He hadn't run into anyone else when he was last here with Mabel and Dipper, but he didn't know why.

Maybe…maybe this was the place that wasn't real.

Well.

Maybe this was the fabrication, at least. Falsehood made true. This might not be the real Unknown, but if it wasn't, how had he wound up here in the first place? And why? If Ford's portal had been working correctly, using his connection to the Unknown as much as his connection to the Beast, he shouldn't end up in a false version of the Unknown. But while this place had seemed to have the right feel at first, the emptiness was…disquieting. Wrong, in a way that the Unknown had never been.

He wished he had some more supplies with him. Why hadn't he at least packed something as simple as a compass? He'd never find this place again, even if he tried to mark it (piles of stones, cutting trees with a sharp rock, anything), especially once it got dark. It was dim enough now with a thick blanket of grey clouds overhead. He wasn't sure what time it was, but it had to be closer to evening than afternoon.

If he couldn't find some sort of shelter soon, he'd be spending the night out in the open again. Like last time.

Wirt swallowed, cast one last look around the place where he'd landed, and then headed off to find…something. Someone. A path, a person, a talking bluebird— Anything.

It was hard to hope when he felt entirely alone, and a lack of hope would only ensure he'd never leave this place again.

"I'll find Mabel and Dipper," he said to himself. "And then we'll get out of here. We'll beat the Beast, Bill Cipher, and whoever else tries to stop us." He couldn't keep the warble out of his voice, couldn't quite convince himself. "We _will_ ," he tried again, more fiercely. Then, quieter, "We have to."

* * *

"This is all I could find for food," Mabel said, dumping out a pile of acorns from her sweater onto the table in front of Dipper. They were holed up in the old house by the mill—the Woodsman's house, Wirt had called it—and were trying to supplement the few canned goods they'd found with whatever the forest had to offer. Unfortunately, that wasn't very much. At least, not when she went out. Dipper was better at that kind of thing. "We can eat these, right?"

"We need to shell them and soak them before we roast them," Dipper said, "but we can eat them."

"I feel sorry for the poor squirrel whose stash I stole," Mabel said, "but until we can figure out how to get out of here…."

She didn't finish.

She didn't need to.

She was confident they would find a way out, but they hadn't had much opportunity yet. After their fight with not-Wirt—the Beast—they'd been in pretty bad shape. She could barely walk the first couple of days, and Dipper…. It was bad. Mabel still didn't think his arm was set right, but they'd done the best they could. She'd done the best she could. The point was, they'd decided not to travel yet. They didn't know where anything was in this place, and since Wirt—or at least Greg—had gotten out of the Unknown from a point nearby, they hadn't wanted to stray too far.

She'd made her way back to the lake in daylight once, and it was just as creepy as it had been when Wirt had been there, standing guard.

She really didn't want to return there again, so she'd explored other directions, trying to find the place where she and Dipper had crossed over. Dipper had looked, too. They'd marked anything resembling a path, cutting into the trees with sharp stones with a couple of knives they'd found in the kitchen, but she didn't know how much use that was going to be. Getting out of here wasn't going to be easy, and they weren't certain of anything yet.

Some half-hearted searching while out scavenging for food wasn't really enough to find anything definitive, but aside from the elusive entryway, Mabel wasn't entirely sure what she was looking for. Granted, unless the portal looked like a proper gap between realities, she wasn't even sure she'd recognize that if she saw it.

"It's my turn to scout," Dipper said. "I'll just walk the usual route, I promise. Can you crack the nuts and start soaking our supper?"

Mabel grinned. "Hitting stuff with a heavy object? No problem, bro-bro." She knew Dipper would be fine. They had yet to encounter anyone else—heck, they had yet to see so much as the squirrel that had stashed the acorns—and they went scouting for signs of life as much as anything else.

Wirt had told them a bit about this place, but it wasn't called the Unknown for nothing.

Dipper had run tests, of course. He'd tried everything he could remember from the journals, and she'd pitched in to help when it came to improvising things. So far, nothing had changed. It still felt like a creepily empty wood, the daylength and weather matched up with what she expected around Halloween, and she was sure the trees were alive in a way that wasn't normal alive for trees—which in her opinion was entirely justified after Wirt's talk of people turning into Edelwood.

It made her wonder if too few lost souls had wandered through and the Beast had found a means of turning other souls—other beings—into his fuel.

They didn't know that for sure, though.

They hadn't found any sign of the Beast, either.

Not since the lamp had gone out.

She was pretty sure Wirt had disappeared then, if he'd ever really existed. She hadn't exactly gotten up right away to check. She'd been watching the lamp. She'd wanted to make sure it was out. And then she'd scrambled forward to grab it and smash it into the ground. It was only once the glass was finally broken that she'd realized that no one had tried to stop her.

As Dipper headed out, Mabel glanced at the twisted remains of the lamp they'd hung on the nail by the door. He hadn't taken a candle—he insisted they preserve what supplies they could, even after nearly catching half the forest on fire after trying to carry around a flaming branch—but she wasn't too worried about him. It wouldn't take him long to walk the short scouting route. He'd be halfway back by the time she got all the acorns shelled.

Determined not to let this place get to her, Mabel started humming, making it up as she went. By the time she'd collected everything she needed, she'd started crafting words to match her song. She planned on teaching it to Dipper later.

* * *

"Where's Wirt?"

"What?" Wendy turned, frowning at Greg. "He can't be that far behind us, he was just…." But Wirt wasn't in sight.

They hadn't gone that far since he'd said he'd had to tie his shoe. Then again, they'd been fairly close to the woods when he'd said it. And she knew enough to know that it didn't take a demon to make things go bump in the night in Gravity Falls.

To be fair, she was relatively certain that Mabel and Dipper had befriended most of the, ah, unbelievable creatures that lived in the woods. That made it more unlikely that Wirt had been taken, though far from impossible. She wasn't willing just assume he was fine, though. Past experience and family training drills had taught her to be more vigilant than that.

"Let's head back and see if we can spot him," she said. "He might have taken a wrong turn or decided to head back to Old Man McGucket's."

"Okey-dokey," Greg said, turning around without protest and starting to whistle.

Wendy didn't know the tune but didn't bother asking, even if it might distract the kid; making sure Greg stayed safe was more important to her at the moment.

Especially since the other potential reason she could think of for Wirt's disappearance involved possession. Specifically, his.

She sent a text to Robbie—he lived closest—to gather the others. They could comb the woods, see if they could find anyone (or anything) who knew what had become of Wirt. She was pretty sure he wouldn't be where they had left him, and she was pretty sure he wouldn't have headed back alone.

She didn't want to call Soos when he was out with his mother and Melody, so she called Stan and tried to keep her voice down when he answered. "Wirt's gone," she said.

He stuck her with babysitting duty. Didn't even want her going into the woods with Greg. She might have protested if he hadn't pointed out that if Wirt had been taken, Greg could be next, and he'd need someone who could fight to defend him. Until they knew what had happened, they couldn't rule out the possibility that someone or something had Wirt and was looking for an opportunity to take Greg, too. Those two might be strangers to Gravity Falls, but they weren't strangers to the secrets it hid.

And if they'd broken a deal and gotten on the wrong side of a demon, anything could be coming for them. For their world. Or at least anyone who could remotely qualify as a lost soul, if she'd understood the Beast's MO correctly.

"Stick with me, squirt," she called as Greg skipped ahead. "If Wirt decided to head back this early, that's his problem, but we're going to make the most of your first Summerween."

The way he stopped and looked at her made her certain he knew exactly what she thought was going on and what she was doing. Divert. Distract. Deflect. Stopping just short of denying what might very well be an uncomfortable truth.

He didn't call her on it, though.

Not yet.

He trusted her.

Or maybe he just trusted that Wirt would be okay, whatever had happened.

She wasn't going to let him down if there was anything she could to do to help it.

* * *

In hindsight, Wirt had no idea how long he'd been hearing the whispering before realizing that he was hearing actual words, not wind.

Once he did, he ran.

After tripping over a tree root and having the remaining breath knocked from him, he rolled to his side and listened over his gasps for breath as the voices grew louder.

Or maybe just clearer. More distinct from the wind than before. For all that they had followed him, they didn't seem to be any closer.

 _He's back! He's back! He's back!_

The call was repeated in different voices and different tones. High, low, clear, gravelly, strong, weak, triumphant, fearful, incredulous, despairing. It was picked up and carried through an unseen crowd, fading with each repetition until a new cry began.

 _He's lost! He's lost! He's lost!_

He couldn't outrun them. At least, he hadn't managed to get any farther away from them; they sounded as near as they ever had. And…and he could feel them watching him, even if the watchers weren't human.

It made him want to curl up and hide, to get away from the judgemental stares and mocking voices.

 _He's trapped! He's trapped! He's trapped!_

Wirt pulled himself into a ball, squeezed his eyes shut, and covered his ears.

 _He's a_ pushover _,_ snarled one voice, and the haunting cries of the others cut off.

Wirt sat up slowly, recovered the flashlight, and shone it around. No amount of squinting into and scanning the trees revealed what he was looking for. But even if he couldn't see her— "Beatrice?" That had been her voice. He was sure of it. "Beatrice!"

There was no sign of her. Why would she have flown away? If she was still a bluebird—

"Beatrice!" She should have stuck around to tease him if nothing else. "Beatrice, where are you?"

Nothing but silence. And the stinging in his hands and knees that proved at least some of this was real—or felt real. He shivered. Maybe this was just his mind playing tricks on him, and there had never been any voices at all. What if he was in the wrong place? What if Ford's machine had dropped him in the wrong dimension? If his connection with the Beast had been severed by Dipper and Mabel—

"No, this has to be the right dimension," Wirt said. He wasn't sure if he wholly believed the words, but saying them aloud made him feel better.

Still, the Unknown wasn't this empty. It shouldn't be this empty.

Something glinted in the debris. Wirt moved closer and then picked up and brushed off the gaudy star-shaped earring. _Mabel_ 's earring. It was proof that he was in the right place, proof that they were here, or had been, and—

And he wouldn't have found it if he hadn't been running blind, if the voices hadn't been chasing him, hadn't driven him here. Had they been trying to help him? Beatrice's voice hadn't led the charge—he hadn't heard her until the end—but he wasn't sure anymore if he'd recognized any of the other voices.

He clutched the earring hard enough that its sharp edges dug into his palm. "Thank you," he said quietly. Carefully. He didn't know that this was the Unknown, the _real_ Unknown, but even if it wasn't— Even if it wasn't, he'd been helped. He'd been terrified, but he'd been helped.

And he wasn't foolish enough to brush something like that off as a coincidence this time.

* * *

Robbie kept texting her updates, but they hadn't found anything. Wendy stole quick glances at her phone whenever Greg skipped up to the next house (they were hitting the opposite side of the street they had earlier), but the most she'd managed to get back to Robbie was a quick reminder to question everything they came across, not just the humans.

Gnomes and pixies and everything else might not associate too much with them, but they'd at least speak to humans they knew were friends of those involved in stopping Weirdmageddon.

If they were feeling particularly generous, they'd even tell the truth, if not necessarily without some sort of payment in return. Robbie and the others knew that, of course, but none of them had great bargaining skills. They'd picked up nothing from Stan while visiting her on her breaks at the Mystery Shack.

Wendy and Greg were halfway back to McGucket's when she got the phone call. _"Situation's changed,"_ came Stan's gruff voice. _"You and the kid get back here."_

Greg was watching her curiously, so Wendy chose her words carefully. "We're on our way," she said, gesturing for Greg to keep walking. "Anything else?"

" _We'll fill you in when you get back. Don't dawdle."_

Don't dawdle. Right. Like she could rush back without alerting Greg to the seriousness of the situation. But Stan had sounded angry and worried. That could mean a million things, none of them good. And, more likely than not, Greg would find out something worrisome when they got back, anyway.

"You've got a lot of candy there," she said. "Let's go straight back before your arms break from the weight of your haul. We can decide if we want to go out again later."

"Okay," chirped Greg. "Is Wirt meeting us there?"

She hated lying to the kid. "I think he's running so far ahead of us that he's behind. If we hurry, we should be able to beat him back." She struck up a quick pace, hoping the speed would be a sufficient distraction from her not-answers to Greg's questions.

* * *

Dipper was so used to the silence that he noticed the sound before he noticed anything else.

It was a heavy, scuffling sort of sound, made by something much larger than a single gnome and much smaller than a multi-bear. He leaned against the trunk of an ancient oak and held his breath. Leaves crackled and crunched. A branch snapped. It hadn't rained since they'd gotten here, which made it even easier to hear the approach—

Light flashed, swinging with each footfall and chasing away the shadows across from Dipper. He could hear breathing now. It was close.

Wirt swept into view, walking past Dipper without seeming to notice him, still swinging his flashlight around.

Dipper didn't move.

He didn't know if it was really Wirt.

For all he knew, it was the Beast.

Without knowing the exact words of Wirt's deal, he couldn't be absolutely certain that he'd succeeded in breaking it. And if Wirt _had_ been straddling two worlds….

Dipper waited until Wirt—not-Wirt, the Beast, whoever—was far enough ahead that he was unlikely to notice Dipper's movement in the darkness. He bent low and went as quickly as he dared along the familiar path. They were lucky Wirt hadn't noticed it. He was heading towards their hiding place, but he wasn't on the most direct route.

To be fair, Dipper wasn't, either, but he didn't need both arms to run, and that's what he did as soon as he'd lost sight of Wirt's flashlight beam.

He noticed the change in Wirt's direction as he was reaching the shack. It was too late to extinguish the woodfire in the stove, but when he burst inside, he didn't even have a chance to open his mouth before Mabel had picked up a fire poker. "What is it? The Beast? Let me at him. After what he did to Wirt and then us—"

"It looks like Wirt," Dipper interrupted, knowing Mabel knew exactly what he didn't say. Knew that looking like Wirt didn't mean it _was_ Wirt. A frown pulled at her mouth, but all she did was point to the pot of water where she was boiling the acorns. He eased it off the stove with his good arm and held it at the ready, prepared to throw it if needed. They took up positions on either side of the door, Mabel behind it in case the water tossing came before the poking.

He wasn't expecting the knock.

From the look on Mabel's face, she wasn't, either.

He shook his head, and she closed her mouth.

The door creaked open. "Dipper? Mabel?"

It sounded like Wirt. Nervous. Wary. He came forward. Spotted Dipper out of the corner of his eye and froze, watching the steam curling up from the pot. He licked his lips. "That's, um, not necessary. It's just me."

"It was _just you_ last time," Dipper snarled. He knew Mabel wouldn't agree, but at least she was holding her tongue for now. She knew, just as he did, that if he could keep Wirt where he was, she could shove the door into him and knock him off balance—as long as he wasn't prepared for it.

Wirt held up his hands. "I'm sorry. But it wasn't just me then, and I don't think…. I mean, I don't know for sure, but I don't think I'm still connected to the Beast. He's not the reason I'm here. Your great-uncle helped me. Ford."

Dipper didn't lower the pot, which was becoming painfully heavy in his hand, but he heard Mabel squeal from behind the door and peek around it. "You've talked to Grunkle Ford and Grunkle Stan?"

 _Don't give him any more names to use against us_ , Dipper wanted to say. He couldn't remember if they'd mentioned their grunkles by name before. He didn't know if this was a trick. Mabel thought it wasn't, but she'd thought that last time, too. He'd relented, and they'd paid for their mistakes.

"They're trying to get you back."

"Of course they would," Dipper snapped. "That's not a stretch. This isn't the first time something like this has happened in our family."

Mabel waltzed around, relieved him of the dangerously-tilting potful of water and acorns, and set it back on the stove. "Tell us what happened," she said, turning back to look expectantly at Wirt.

Wirt told them about finding himself back in the real world, about searching for them, discovering their absence, and what he feared it meant. He talked about how Ford had broken back into the abandoned lab when Soos's family was gone and how he'd used Wirt to create a portal. How Wirt had ended up here instead of Ford. How he wasn't sure how they'd get back.

"Convenient," Dipper said flatly when Wirt had finished.

Mabel shot him a glare. "It's not his fault," she said, even though, as far as Dipper was concerned, it _was_ Wirt's fault, at least in part—assuming any word of what he'd said was true.

"It is if he's just lying," Dipper said, staring at Wirt and watching for some flicker of expression that might give him away. "It is if the Beast just brought him back here again, like he had before. Demons don't exactly play short games." He read the wounded expression on Wirt's face easily enough, real or not, but he still addressed Mabel. "Just because he believes what he's saying, doesn't mean it's the truth. You know how much demons can bend reality in their own worlds. Wirt's more effective if he doesn't realize he's still a pawn." _Like last time._

Wirt flinched, but he didn't deny any of it.

"The world won't end just because we decide to trust him." Mabel ignored Dipper's look and instead turned to Wirt. "We've never met anyone else here, and if you and Greg found a way out near here, it doesn't seem to exist anymore."

Wirt swallowed. "So we're stuck until your uncle—"

"Grunkle," Dipper corrected, narrowing his eyes. He wasn't convinced that was a simple slip of the tongue.

"—can make another portal."

"Or until we beat whoever's holding us here," Mabel said. "But that's why Dipper's being grumpy. If you're you and not the Beast again, we're no farther ahead. We haven't had much luck finding clues. We don't know this place like you do."

"It's not just knowing it," Wirt said slowly. "It's…. Mabel, you're right. It's empty here. And it shouldn't be. I thought it was abandoned at first, but earlier, I…. I heard something. Voices. They helped me find you, I think."

He held out his hand towards Mabel, and Dipper realized he was holding her lost earring. Her face lit up and she grabbed her earring before throwing her arms around him. "Thank you! I didn't think I was ever going to see that again."

Dipper wished he didn't have to think that it might be a bribe, something to try to win them over.

But they knew less about Wirt than he apparently did about them, and it was hard to trust someone when you knew you were caught in a trap—especially when they might not even be real.

"What do you mean by voices?" Dipper asked carefully.

"The only one I recognized was Beatrice's. It was…. I dunno. Like a crowd picking up a chant, close to me even though I couldn't see anyone." Wirt rubbed one arm and looked away. "I thought they were trying to confuse me, but maybe they were just trying to help me. I didn't know where to find you. I didn't recognize where I was dropped. But after I ran from them, I found your earring, and then I found you."

How convenient. They'd never heard so much as a whisper in the woods—nothing beyond wind, anyway—but now, mysterious voices were suddenly helping. It was easy enough to explain away in a world of fabrications, but not in the true Unknown, not when he and Mabel had walked acres upon acres in all directions.

But being almost certain a place wasn't real didn't make it any easier to escape from.

He might be able to figure out the truth about Wirt, though, if he pushed it. Mabel would play along. She still wanted to trust him, anyway. "Then let's go back out there and see if they'll lead us anywhere else," Dipper said.

Wirt didn't look thrilled by this idea. "Maybe we should just wait until a portal—"

"The portal won't find us," interrupted Dipper. "We have to find it." If Wirt was telling the whole truth, that wasn't a lie. Grunkle Ford might be able to find the Unknown again even without Wirt there to help, now that he'd found it once, but he didn't have an anchor. He wouldn't be able to open the portal in a specific spot, not when he was working with partially-damaged machinery.

And if any part of Wirt's words were a lie, Dipper didn't particularly want to stick around and be a sitting duck.

Mabel managed to get the emergency candles lit before he realized what she was doing. She threw the boiling water into the stove when she was finished, dousing more than just the fire as steam hissed and acorns crackled. "Let's go back to the lake," she said. She managed to keep the tremor out of her voice, but Dipper knew how much she'd hated that place.

Wirt stared at her. "Are you crazy? If the Beast isn't finished with me—"

"It's the best option. Right, Dip-Dip?"

He nodded and took the candle she offered him, grateful that the brass holder wasn't too heavy. "It doesn't fit," he agreed. "Doesn't follow the same rules as the rest of this place. And if the Beast had you guarding it, that was for a reason."

"And if you don't remember it from before," Mabel put in, "maybe it's fake, even if nothing else is."

Dipper pursed his lips but didn't comment. Mabel was being optimistic, but she was wrong. More than just the lake was fabricated—or maybe everything _but_ the lake, depending on where they really were.

"Let's go," he said as Wirt reluctantly took the third candle from Mabel. "We don't know how much time we've got."

* * *

Wendy couldn't stop Greg from hearing Stan and Ford shouting at each other when they entered the mansion, but she could slam the door behind them loudly enough that the twins stopped.

Unfortunately, that was enough time for Greg to run ahead of her.

"What's wrong?" he asked, opening the door to the hall on the two elder Pines twins and McGucket. No Soos, Wendy noted as she followed him inside, which hopefully meant it wasn't as bad as it could be.

"Your brother went on a little trip," Ford began, but Wendy saw Stan's face harden and wasn't surprised when he cut in.

"The genius over here sent Wirt through a portal," he growled. "Broke into the old lab, even with half the equipment shot, and thought he could make things work perfectly."

Ford shot Stan a sour look. "I was trying to help."

"By sneaking around behind our backs!"

"Old habits," McGucket said quietly, and Wendy saw the retort die on Ford's tongue.

"This isn't Bill," he insisted instead. "I'm not being controlled or influenced. That's over. He's gone."

"Like Wirt thought he'd escaped the Beast?" Stan retorted.

"Quit fighting," snapped Wendy. "I'll check in with Robbie. He can find out if there's been any movement felt on that front."

"He's in the woods?" McGucket looked equally surprised and impressed, and Wendy resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

"All my friends are. They're not completely incompetent." She wanted an answer right away, so she called instead of texting, and Robbie answered immediately. He'd found a pair of gnomes by the statue—nearly been ambushed in the process, apparently—but while they were on higher security, they didn't have anything definite.

Especially since the so-called suspicious person they described sounded like Wirt in his Summerween costume.

"I just need a bit more time," Ford said. "Soos can keep his mother out of the house long enough for me to figure this out. I can—"

"You're not doing this alone, Sixer." Stan's tone left no room for argument. "If I can rebuild that thing off partial blueprints, I can help you fix it enough to get the kids back."

"It's not that simple. Without Wirt to stabilize the connection, I can't keep a portal open for more than a few seconds, even assuming we can get everything working properly in the first place."

Wendy saw Greg's lip tremble. "So…so that means—?"

"Ice cream," she interrupted, not wanting him to hear anything else. Ford had _no_ idea how to talk around kids. "We should get ice cream. You like ice cream, right, Greg?"

"Yes, but—"

"Then we'll definitely get ice cream. Right now." She grabbed his hand and started to pull him towards the door. "Don't worry; I'm sure Stan and Ford will have things figured out soon."

She didn't promise that Wirt would be home soon. That everything would be okay. She couldn't.

Judging by Greg's slow, reluctant footsteps, he'd noticed that this time.

* * *

Dipper didn't trust him, even if Mabel was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. That much would have been obvious to Wirt even if he hadn't been sandwiched between the twins, following Mabel as she led the way back to the lake. The trouble was, he couldn't blame them. He wasn't sure if he trusted himself, either.

He supposed he was safer with them. Well, that _they_ were safer when he was with them. If the Beast did overtake him again, maybe they'd notice before it was too late. And this way, he couldn't plot against them ahead of time.

"This really isn't the Unknown I remember," he muttered.

"Might not be," Mabel pointed out. She still held the fire poker, occasionally using it as a crutch, and Wirt wondered if the Beast had made her injury worse. If _he_ had, just like he'd broken Dipper's arm. "Especially not if he's working with—"

"Mabel," Dipper hissed.

Mabel stopped to look back at her brother. "It doesn't matter if we tell it to him straight, bro-bro. If he's working with the Beast, he already knows, and if he's not, then he might already know, anyway. He did go to Gravity Falls."

"Yeah, but if he's not working with the Beast, and the Beast doesn't know—"

"He does. We told him last time, more or less."

"It was more _less_ ," Wirt offered, and Dipper snorted.

Mabel nodded and started walking again. "But you deserve to know more now. He's trapped me before. In a fabrication. We had to fight our way out. Except here we have nothing to fight. So either the Beast's powers are different, or we haven't found the part he wants to protect yet."

Wirt wasn't sure what she meant. "Um…."

"She means you might've triggered something when you ran into the voices," Dipper explained shortly. "You ran when you heard them. They scared you."

"They helped me."

"Maybe that's what you're supposed to think."

Wirt stopped. "I don't like this. We should go back."

Dipper prodded him forward. "Exactly what you'd say if we were going in the right direction and you wanted us back off track."

"No, it's not like that, it's—"

"But you don't _know_ that. It might be. You didn't realize the Beast was using you as a puppet before, pulling your strings whenever he pleased. And I can't be sure I broke your contract, especially when this place still exists."

Wirt swallowed. "You don't think it's real, either."

"Real is relative," Dipper pointed out. "Just because someone made it, doesn't mean it isn't real."

"Besides," added Mabel, "you said this isn't like you remember it being, and it's so…empty. Which makes it more likely that we're not in the Unknown you remember."

"But then why would I have been here in the first place? You should never have found me if this isn't the real Unknown."

"That's easy. To trap us. Just because you were in this version of the Unknown when we came, doesn't mean this was always the version you visited when the Beast called on you. You've probably spent more time in the other place than you realize."

"But…." Wirt shook his head. "Ford's portal, then. This shouldn't have worked. I should have ended up in the real Unknown."

"You said Grunkle Ford was using your connection to the Beast to open a portal, not your connection to the Unknown. You'd have both, but if the Beast is here, watching over us—"

"Then this is where his presence would be the strongest," Wirt finished, glancing back to see Dipper's approving nod. "But…but then that means Ford has nothing. He won't be able to open a portal to the right place without me. He doesn't have a connection to the Beast."

"He's smart," Mabel said. "Him and Grunkle Stan and Old Man McGucket. They'll think of something."

But they couldn't know that, not for sure. Wirt didn't want to say it, though. That kind of thinking was dangerous in the Unknown—whichever Unknown this was.

The wind picked up, and Wirt shivered. "We should have waited until daylight."

"We can't afford to wait. Time might pass differently here."

Wirt swallowed. He opened his mouth—

—and heard the whispering on the wind.

 _They're coming! They're coming! They're coming!_

"Listen," he said, stopping, and this time Dipper didn't prod him forward again.

 _They're lost! They're lost! They're lost!_

"Your voices?" Dipper murmured, and Wirt nodded. "Recognize any?"

It was too hard to pick out a single voice from the cacophony, and he had to shake his head.

 _They're trapped! They're trapped! They're trapped!_

"Maybe they're just…borrowed," Mabel offered. "From the citizens of the real Unknown."

"Like a soundtrack?"

Mabel rolled her eyes at Dipper's incredulous tone. "Yeah. I mean, without anyone actually here, the Beast would get lonely, wouldn't he?"

"But Beatrice's voice broke through, like she—"

 _Dangerous magic._

"That's her!"

 _Too many tricks_.

"B—" Wirt cut Mabel off with a hurried _shh_ and motioned for them all to listen. It was Beatrice's voice, breaking through like last time, trying to tell him something, trying to help him, trying to—

 _Get out. Get out. Get_ out _!_

"How?" Wirt cried.

Nothing.

Dipper looked at Mabel. "This isn't like anything he's done to us before," he said quietly. "We can't be sure this is him. We can't assume it is, just like we can't assume it isn't."

"We have to keep going."

"For the record, I hate that idea," Wirt muttered. "Look, Beatrice is trying to help, so if we just wait for her to come back and tell us more—"

"We can't." Dipper's answer was the one Wirt knew he was going to get, but that didn't mean he liked it. "If the voices are just triggered—"

"What if they're not? What if they're actually trying to help?"

"We have to risk it," Mabel said, and she turned and started off again. Wirt trailed after her, waiting for the wind to rise again. Waiting for the voices to come back. For _Beatrice's_ voice to come back.

Wirt still kept his flashlight in one hand and Mabel's candle in the other; there wasn't much other light to be had, with the moon still hidden behind the clouds. When the wind suddenly rose again, blowing out their candles and sending his hat into the trees, his flashlight was the only light they had.

"Careful," came Dipper's warning, but none of them needed it; they all knew to be on alert. His sweeping flashlight caught nothing, and the whispering hadn't come back, but—

"I'll trade you," Mabel said, swapping her unlit candle for his flashlight before he could think to protest. "Come on. We're close."

"What if this is a bad idea?"

"We're close," Dipper repeated. He shoved Wirt's hat into one of his pockets, pulled his own low, and pushed Wirt forward.

Wirt frowned but opted instead to strain his ears for any trace of the voices, any clue that might—

 _Get back!_

The echoing cry was so loud that, even expected, he jumped and stumbled. The warnings were repeated, louder, circling them—

"Keep moving," Dipper hissed in his ear, and Mabel reached back to grab his hand. If he wanted to stay in her circle of light, he didn't have a choice. He squinted against the gusting wind and ducked his head. If he lost the light—

"I never triggered it before," Mabel yelled as she fought against the howling wind that tried to push them back. "I think it knew that I didn't want to stay and explore. I think it knew it was safe."

"How is this _safe_?"

"It's not," Dipper hollered, trudging forward on Wirt's other side. "Not now. Not when we're doing what it doesn't want us to do."

"But that's the point," Mabel added. "We're not going to get out of this if we keep doing what it wants."

She didn't add what Wirt suspected: that they probably would've tried as much earlier if it hadn't been for him and the condition he'd left them in. If they'd been able to go out together, confidently, with the intent of escape instead of the intent of survival and making do until they were well enough to make a decent escape attempt.

He swallowed the rest of his protests, put his head back down, and fought his way forward, following them even as the voices started to scream. Started to beg. Even as Beatrice's voice cut through the rest and yelled at him to go back, to stay where he was safe.

Because while it was her voice, it was no longer her words.

Mabel and Dipper were right. It was some kind of illusion, some kind of defense mechanism. He would have trusted it, would have _fallen_ for it, were it not for the Pines twins. The Beast had used Beatrice's voice to try to convince him, but he hadn't managed to steal her spirit.

It was another confirmation that this place was the fabrication. Maybe he'd always been coming here, maybe he'd gone to the real Unknown before, but the Beast had had a hold on him once. If Dipper hadn't broken it before, maybe getting out of here with them would break it for good.

Dipper's hat flew off his head, hit Wirt in the face, and disappeared into the darkness. Wirt's wild grab couldn't save it, and Dipper caught Wirt's eye and shook his head; he wasn't willing to go back for it.

Another step forward ended in Wirt being yanked backwards, and he realized his cloak had caught in the trees. Ahead of him, Dipper was helping Mabel rip her hair free from a tangle of branches. He couldn't remember the ground being soft before, but suddenly his shoes were sinking into the muck, sticking and threatening to trap him—or at least trip him.

This place really was trying to keep them from reaching the lake.

It had certainly never tried to stop them from leaving it.

Mabel yelled something, but this time the wind stole her words away. Still, she was pointing ahead of them, and Wirt could see what she had: a glimmer of reflected light.

The lake.

* * *

Two hours after their ice cream, Wendy was running out of excuses to keep Greg from talking to Stan and Ford. And when he managed to give her the slip—no easy feat—and make it back to the Mystery Shack by himself, she decided she couldn't fight it. He'd figured out that the secret lab was at the Mystery Shack, after all, and hadn't been freaked out by a wax head of Larry King telling him how to get into the secret basement, so she figured he deserved to stay.

"You're good, squirt," she admitted after he told her how he'd found the place. Ford had shot her a dark look when she'd come down the secret stairway to find Greg sitting on the floor with his back to the wall, but Ford wasn't one to talk when it came to responsibility. After last summer, Stan had proven his worth when it came to handling kids; as far as Wendy was concerned, Ford had a ways to go. Especially after what had happened to Wirt. Just because she'd known how to tie dozens of different knots at Greg's age, doesn't mean Wirt knew how to tie even one decent knot.

Greg hummed in acknowledgement of her praise and went back to watching Ford and Stan argue. "It's not working, is it?" he asked quietly.

"They're good at this kind of thing."

"But they're missing something, aren't they?"

Wendy hesitated. From what she could overhear, Ford was insistent that they needed _some_ sort of anchor or they'd be flying blind, punching into who knew how many dimensions before finding the right one. Confirming Greg's fears would crush him—she could see how much he loved his brother—but she didn't want to give him false hope. She'd been taught how dangerous that was, too.

"Yes," she said. "They are."

He nodded, his face solemn. "They need a connection to the Beast."

"To do this fast? Yeah, I think they do."

"Then they've got one."

Wendy blinked. "What?"

"I'm a connection," Greg said. "I made a deal with the Beast, too, right? To free Wirt. And then Wirt freed me and we got home. So I'm connected. Because I used to be connected."

"Greg, I'm not sure—"

"Wirt needs me," Greg said, climbing to his feet. "I'm going to help him. Make sure the Beast doesn't get him again."

"But—"

"That's why I came," he told her. "To protect my brother."

When he crossed the floor to talk to Stan and Ford, Wendy didn't try to stop him.

* * *

The world seemed to tilt, and Mabel dug the fire poker into the ground to steady herself. She couldn't tell if there were still voices shrieking in the wind, trying to warn them away, but she _was_ certain that the trees and the earth itself were working against them.

Just like when she and Dipper had first come here, tripping her up and testing them both.

Also like when she and Dipper had first come, the lake's surface was smooth, entirely unaffected by the gale that blew over its waters towards them. It still radiated _wrongness_ , and she was still terrified of touching the water, but she fought down the urge to turn and run. They had to keep going. This world had abandoned its illusion of harmlessness. Even if they turned back, they might not be able to keep fighting long enough for Grunkle Ford and Grunkle Stan to find them.

Mabel raised the flashlight again, sweeping it along the shore. Her heart skipped when she didn't find what she was looking for, and then she saw it, off to their left. The rowboat.

She didn't know what lay on the other side of the lake. None of them did, not really. Not-Wirt had told them that he ferried people across to the other side, those who chose to go, who chose to cross, but they hadn't met anyone. It couldn't be true. The voices they'd heard did _not_ belong to those who'd taken his offer.

And…and if they did, well, she'd fight when she saw what they were facing on the other side.

"This way!" she shouted, though in all likelihood it was the waving flashlight that caught the attention of the others.

It took longer to close the distance to the boat than she'd expected, even considering how often the roots tried to trip them up, the thorns cut them, and the branches snag them. Once they got out of the forest, they skidded on gravel, tripped over uneven ground, or sunk into soft earth; there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it, which made things worse.

One of her shoes came off in the mud. She tried to tug it out, but it didn't want to come, so she left it. She pulled off her sock and went barefoot, pleased it was easier to walk this way. She was willing to deal with the cold and muck if it got her out of here.

The boat was smaller than she remembered, but she bit her lip and scrambled inside anyway. They'd have to make it work. Just because it didn't look seaworthy, didn't mean it wasn't. Especially here. Things weren't what they seemed here.

Wirt and Dipper looked at her and then at each other. She hadn't discussed this part of the plan with them, not knowing if the boat would still be here, but they knew what she was thinking readily enough. Dipper nodded and climbed in beside her. Wirt glanced over his shoulder at the dark woods and then said something that was lost in the wind. Mabel nodded as if she'd heard him anyway.

Wirt gave the boat an experimental shove. It rocked beneath them, and this time, the water rippled. Wirt looked pale and wrong, strangely shadowed as he was in the flashlight beam, and the red streaking the side of his face from a cut on his temple didn't help him look any more human. But his nervousness _was_ human, as was his determination, and he pushed against the bow of the boat and waded into the lake until they were off the sandbar and floating freely on the water.

He nearly tipped them while climbing in, but once they were all in the boat, the wind stopped. It was as if the world had paused around them, the only sounds their breathing and the quiet drip of water from Wirt's clothes. She couldn't tell if dark shapes were darting across the shore or if it were merely her imagination.

"Let's get farther out," Dipper said, and his voice sounded hoarse. He handed his oar to Wirt, and she did the same, keeping a firm hold on the flashlight. Wirt wasn't in the best position to row, but she wasn't sure they could switch places without ending up in the lake.

"Do you think this is the right move?" croaked Wirt.

Mabel glanced at Dipper, but neither answered right away. The world was quiet now except for the uncoordinated splashes of the oars as Wirt struggled to turn the boat around, but something was still…wrong. She just wasn't sure if she could trust her gut anymore. Not-Wirt had tricked her before, after all.

Dipper gave a slight tilt of his head, letting her answer first. But she didn't know what to say. She could smell the wetness in the air, taste the building fog. She could see the first wisps of it visible in the flashlight beam, and nothing but a wall of cloud beyond. If they rowed into it and lost the shore, they could be going around in circles. It would be entirely too easy to get turned around.

"This world isn't real," she said finally, giving voice to what they'd all accepted by now, "and we don't know how long it'll last. Even if it's not the right move, we can make it the right move. We just need to keep going."

She glanced up, straining to catch sight of the moon between the clouds. For a split second, she did, bright and full—and then it flickered, shadows blending to white as darkness slit the middle, and the eye _winked_ before it was covered with clouds again. Her breath caught in her throat, and she thought she heard laughter in the distance.

Judging by Wirt's and Dipper's uncomfortable expressions, they heard it, too.

* * *

"Wirt needs me," Greg repeated, "and I can help." The adults didn't seem to hear him, though. They were arguing again. They did that a lot. Did all adults do that? He didn't want to do that when he was older.

Besides, he didn't know why they were arguing. It wasn't as hard as everyone thought. Whatever they needed a connection to—the Beast, the Unknown, Wirt—he had it. And Wendy had already tied three ropes around him, all double-knotted. And if all of that failed, well, he and Wirt would get out of the Unknown again, and bring Mabel and Dipper with them. It wouldn't be much different than before.

He'd miss having Jason Funderburker along, though. He had a really good singing voice.

"You wanted an anchor point," Stan muttered to his brother.

"He's a _child_ ," Ford hissed back.

"Who can do something you can't. And is perfectly willing to. For his brother. I know what that's like. 'Sides, it's not like kids haven't helped us before."

"This is different."

"You sure? Sounds like another demon scumbag to me. Just a dimension you weren't in."

"I need to fix this without endangering—"

"And how are you going to do that, Sixer? All I've heard out of you for the past two hours is that you can't, not without a lot of time or some kind of anchor thing, whatever that means. And now you've got one of those and you don't want to use it?"

"Blinding punching through dimensions won't get us very far," Ford growled.

"So use the kid!" Stan reached out and pat his head, and Greg very pointedly did not squirm away. He _wanted_ to be used. That's why he was here. To help Wirt. That's why he'd come. For his brother.

He'd just thought it would take a lot less arguing once he'd pointed out the obvious.

Greg glanced at Wendy, who had finished tethering herself to the giant lever sticking out of the floor. "Hey," she called. "We're doing this for Dipper and Mabel and Wirt, aren't we? We need to get them back as soon as we can. So let's do this."

Ford grumbled under his breath, but he still brought some suction cups on wires over to Greg and told him that he was going to put him on. Greg let him. They didn't hurt, just felt a bit funny on his skin; Ford had put something sticky on them first. Ford started to tell him what to concentrate on, how it had felt when he'd made a deal with the Beast, but Stan interrupted and told him to focus on his brother. On Wirt. Greg could do that. He nodded.

The older Pines twins checked their bindings and his, and he told them he was ready, and then Wendy threw her weight into the lever, shifting it forward.

As the machinery started up with a whine that built to a roar, Greg closed his eyes and thought of Wirt.

Something sparked and cracked, red flashing across his eyes. His breath was stolen from his lungs, and then his feet lifted off the ground and he began to fly.

* * *

"He's here," Mabel said quietly, more for Wirt's sake than Dipper's. Dipper knew that laugh. "Somehow."

"He's not as powerful as he's pretending," Dipper said, but his voice lacked the conviction of confidence. "He can't be. He needed the Beast to pull this off. We wouldn't have run into Wirt otherwise."

"You sure about that, Pine Tree?"

Dipper winced as Bill Cipher's voice cut through the fog. They couldn't see him, but that didn't mean anything; they wouldn't be able to see him unless he wanted them to see him, especially not in here. "Positive," Dipper shot back, his voice stronger than before.

"Then how do you know you and Shooting Star aren't just dreaming as you're turning into Edelwood?"

She could see him taking form in the fog, thickening on the edge of the light.

"They dream, you know. The lost souls. Until their essence is consumed."

"The dreams would be happier if that were true," Mabel retorted. "To keep people inside their dreams."

More laughter. "You've never met the Beast, have you?"

Despite herself, Mabel glanced at Wirt. He was huddled in on himself, shivering as much from the wet and the cold as from the chill in Bill's taunts. He wasn't the Beast, not now. But if he had been before—

"What happens to you," Wirt challenged suddenly, "if you fail? When we all get free? Maybe you and the Beast both wanted to gain more power, and you needed us. Maybe you thought I could be used to trick Mabel and Dipper, that they'd become Edelwood for the Beast. That would get them out of your way, wouldn't it? And…and you thought you could use me, too, didn't you? Back home. Where the Beast couldn't. You thought you could trick me, maybe break my deal with the Beast and let yours take its place. Except Dipper already broke my deal, and we're going to escape, and you'll both be left behind."

Bill Cipher materialized behind Wirt so quickly that Mabel jumped. He looked exactly as she remembered, all bright colours that should be sealed in solid stone, but she knew how skilled he was at illusion. He wouldn't need to have much power to manifest here. "What makes you think I've failed?" he taunted. "You're the one helping them cross the lake, Gatekeeper."

Wirt's face lost its colour, and Mabel knew he wasn't sure if he trusted his own actions. "No," he wheezed out, but he had been the one to cast them off, the one to row them out into the lake until the fog had closed off their path, and he'd drawn the oars back inside to let them drift.

"The Beast told us we could cross or we could stay," Dipper said softly, "and made us think we'd be worse off if we chose to cross. That's what you're trying to do now, too. But we can see through your mind games. You can't get out of here without one of us, and we're not going to just lead you back—"

Dipper broke off.

The fog was shifting, blowing away from them, and something that wasn't the moon flickered behind them.

"Row!" Mabel yelled, hearing Dipper's voice in concert with her own, and Wirt set the oars back in the water and obeyed, straining with every stroke. The boat shifted, cutting through the water even as the fog thickened, trying to steal away the light. Bill tried to stop them, tried to trick them, but Wirt ignored him and, even as Mabel and Dipper ducked, pulled the boat right through Bill's form.

Bill Cipher was nothing more than illusion here, even if the illusion was his own.

He wasn't strong enough yet to have a physical presence after what they'd done to him.

The light was fading, unsteady as a candle in the wind, but the portal was still there when they reached it, hovering just above the water in reflection of the moon that was finally visible again above them. This time, Mabel didn't care about rocking the boat. She stood despite her bad leg, grasping Dipper's good hand in her right and holding onto Wirt with her left.

"We have to jump," she said, but as the boys scrambled to their feet, the boat pitched beneath them.

They fell.

* * *

Wirt wasn't sure what was more disorienting: falling down, then sideways, then down again, or going from dark and foggy to flickering fluorescent lights.

He lay where he fell, letting the solid coolness beneath his back settle the spinning world around him.

Greg's face appeared briefly in his line of sight before Greg's arms wrapped around him, fingers digging between him and the floor. "Wirt! You're okay!"

"I'm okay," he agreed, despite the pounding in his head. "We're all okay. We made it."

Greg sat back, and Wirt took that as his cue to sit up. Darkness swirled on the edge of his vision, but he still heard Greg say, "You needed me, like I said you would. I helped save you."

Wirt smiled. "Thank you." He could guess what had happened; Greg might not be hooked up to any machines at the moment, but circles of red were still visible on his skin. The younger Pines twins were worse for the wear, but the elder pair were fussing over them, Dipper especially. This left Mabel with the freedom to wander over to Wendy, probably to compare experiences and find out what had happened on this side of things.

"Is it over?" Greg asked quietly, dropping to the floor beside Wirt and leaning into him.

Wirt hugged Greg to him with one arm. "I hope so," he said. Time would tell, but he _thought_ his connection with the Beast had been broken. He should be safe. No more unwitting trips to the Unknown—or wherever else that had been. He should be safe, Greg should be safe, and Beatrice and everyone back in the Unknown should be safe—or as safe as they ever were.

But he remembered the statue the gnomes had been guarding in the forest, and he knew he'd met another demon tonight, the one Mabel and Dipper had faced before. And he remembered what Carson had told him. How the statue called to people, drew them here. Carson had assumed the same had happened to him, and Wirt wasn't sure he could deny it.

He remembered how it had felt when he'd arrived, stepping into a place charged with energy that Greg seemed entirely unaffected by.

And then there was Dipper's comment about how demons made plans, playing the long game. Wirt knew it applied to the Beast. He didn't need to ask to know that it also applied to Bill Cipher.

He didn't know if this was really over.

He wasn't sure how to tell.

It made him understand why Bill's appearance was what had truly spooked Mabel and Dipper, more so than anything else. It had confirmed their fears. Likely as not, they didn't think this was over at all; they were probably going to spend the rest of their vacation preparing—though how anyone could prepare to face a demon, Wirt didn't know.

"Good," said Greg. "But if this is the end of our adventure, do you think we'll be able to buy the talking head? He promised to help me with my homework if we brought him home."

Despite himself, Wirt started to laugh, and Greg giggled, too, and it finally felt good. It finally felt _real_. He was home, he was among friends who knew his crazy stories for the truths they were, and he belonged.

And if it wasn't over, well, at least he wouldn't be caught unawares again.


End file.
